A Birthday Tribute to Andrew Wyeth

Untitled, 1980, watercolor 21 x 30

Andrew Wyeth is probably my favorite abstract artist.   Famous for his tight-as-a-tick tempera paintings, the deeper genius of Wyeth’s artistic vision is found in his watercolor and pencil studies.

To abstract is to take information from nature and transpose it into a visual pictorial harmony.   (Paintings that have no starting point in observed nature are referred to as “non-objective”, meaning there is no “object” which the artist is responding to. )  Wyeth’s abstraction is always rooted in nature experienced, observed, and remembered.

Shadows on Fencing 1955

About twenty five years ago, my mother gave me a library-sale copy of Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth by Thomas Hoving.  She had no way of knowing what a profound influence it would have on me.  At the time, I didn’t even know who Andrew Wyeth was.

Woodchopper Study 1964

Wyeth’s studies are pure visual music – light and dark, line, shape, space, color – arranged by a guy who seems to have had the visual equivalent of perfect pitch.

Bushel Bakset Study, 1968 watercolor

Wyeth didn’t have a sentimental, escapist bone in his body.  In Wyeth’s world, people die.  You can feel the brevity of life in the air.  Love and loss coexist.  For this, as much as anything else, I love his work.  Isn’t that exactly how life is?  This art is not bucolic fantasy, but meditations of a poet’s heart on reality.

Garrett Room

Art books almost NEVER tell the things a working artist would want to know — things like, “What was the artist thinking when this image was created?”   “What was the exact process for creating it?” “What other options were considered for the composition?”   “Was there a struggle?”   Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth contains page after page of insights into the creative process of one of the greatest painters of all time.

Imagine if we had an extended interviews with Vermeer,  Rembrandt, or Degas.    Interviews where they let you inside the inner sanctum of their creative process…  That’s what Thomas Hoving and Andrew Wyeth have left for us.

Study for "The Bachelor" (16 x 22) 1964

I’m grateful to Andrew Wyeth for standing alone when the art establishment mocked him as a mere “illustrator.”   He had a spine– an example for every artist who faces the same fork in the road– pleasing the crowd or pursing a vision.   What if Wyeth had sacrificed his vision on the altar of approval from the myopic snobs?

"Not Plowed" 1985

I’m grateful to Andrew Wyeth for generously sharing his working process in so many books.  Pencil studies, color studies, it’s all there to learn from.  He taught me that masters dig for treasure.   He showed me that making good art means hard work.  Some of his images have 40-50 preparatory studies prior to the final piece.  (And those are just the studies chosen for reproduction).  Discipline and perseverance characterized his working life.

studies for Christina's World

Andrew Wyeth’s work teaches the power and beauty of ART – using nature as raw material for building compositions for the purpose of expressing ideas and emotions.  The goal was never to copy nature.  That’s child’s play.  Wyeth is a great artist because he tapped into universal human experience.

But apart from all he has taught me about how to think, how to make art, and why — above all, I am deeply grateful to Andrew Wyeth for the images themselves.   Something in his paintings is MINE.  He did this for me along with millions and millions of people the world over.

Christina's World 1948

Somehow he found a way to pick up a brush, spread pigment, and give us back a piece of ourselves.