...I also really like the phrase “magical realism”...

A couple of years ago I had to write about the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez... I can say that at the time this term puzzled me. Somehow this definition seemed strangely far-fetched and far-fetched...
But recently I realized that it still exists, this magical realism.
*and I also thought now that probably only Andrew Wyeth could illustrate Marquez without distorting the essence...

Yes, all this is wonderful, but family first!

Yes, yes... nepotism again...

Andrew Wyeth's father, Newell Converse Wyeth.

Newell Converse Wyeth(eng. Newell Convers Wyeth, also known as N.C. Wyeth, 1882-1945) - painter, illustrator, founder of the Wyeth dynasty. He is known as an illustrator of children's books published by Charles Screenbears Sans, including Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe, and Treasure Island.

Newell Converse took art seriously. He had a steady focus, an intellectual passion and the life of his workshop was at the center. When Wyeth's children went into business for themselves, they witnessed their father's work habits and a steady stream of publishers and art directors to his workshop at Chadds Ford. They were encouraged to start their own business. Their independent jobs were within easy reach and they took an interest in each other's work. It was reported that they hid like snails when so-called "curious" people came to their homestead to waste their time. At the same time, Newell Converse turned his workshop into a developed and informal school. He patronized young promising artists and often found accommodation for them nearby. Each in his family was encouraged to pursue his own direction: Anne Wyeth composed her first symphony before she was twenty; Nathaniel Wyeth became an inventive scientist; Andrew Wyeth became one of the best known painters of his time.
(Wikipedia)

Andrew Wyeth's son, "Jamie" Wyeth.

James Browning "Jamie" Wyeth (born July 6, 1946, Wilmington, Delaware, USA) is a contemporary American realist artist. The son of the artist Andrew Wyeth and the grandson of the outstanding illustrator Newell Wyeth.

Jamie Wyeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up nearby in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. From adolescence, he attracted public attention as the third generation of famous American artists. In 1966, his first personal exhibition took place. His work became widely known with the opening of the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford in 1971, where large collection three generations Wyeth's.

He visited the USSR twice in 1975 and 1987. In 1987, he opened the exhibition An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art in Leningrad. (Wikipedia)

And finally, himself... Andrew Newell Wyeth.
(eng. Andrew Newell Wyeth, July 12, 1917, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, USA - January 16, 2009, ibid.) - American realist artist, one of the most prominent representatives visual arts USA of the 20th century. Son of the outstanding illustrator Newell Converse Wyeth, brother of the inventor Nathaniel Wyeth and artist Henrietta Wyeth Heard, father of the artist Jamie Wyeth.

The main theme of Wyeth's works is provincial life and American nature. His paintings primarily depict the area around his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Cushing, Maine, where the artist lived during the summer. He used tempera and watercolor (with the exception of early experiments with oil).

Andrew was youngest child in the family of Newell Converse and Caroline Wyeth. He studied at home due to poor health. He began to draw early and studied painting with his father. Wyeth studied art history on his own.

Andrew Wyeth's first solo exhibition of watercolors took place in New York in 1937, when he was 20 years old. All the works exhibited there were sold out quite quickly. Early in his career, Wyeth also did some book illustrating like his father, but soon stopped doing so.

In 1940, Wyeth married Betsy James. In 1943, the couple had a son, Nicholas, and three years later their second child, James (Jamie), was born. In 1945, Wyeth lost his father (he died in a disaster). Around this time, Wyeth's realistic style was finally formed. (Wikipedia)

“We are born and live in a world of fantastic reality” (G. Marquez)

Christina's world, one of the most famous paintings Wyeth

The painting shows Christina Olson, Wyeth's neighbor at his summer home in Maine, sitting in a field looking at her home. Christina Olson suffered from the effects of polio, and her determination and fortitude amazed Wyeth. Despite the fact that the image of Christina is presented in the painting, his wife, Betsy Wyeth, posed for the artist. The artist wrote about her: “Christina was limited physically, but not spiritually.”

In addition to the above-mentioned work by Henry Thoreau, Wyeth called King Vidor's The Big Parade one of his main childhood impressions. This will also be reflected in the work of the matured Andrew, which will forever, despite external staticism, bear the imprint of cinematography. Many years later, Vidor would make a documentary about Wyeth's work, thus returning the nod.

The boy was no less influenced by the excessive guardianship of his father, who took his son’s upbringing and education into his own hands. After Wyeth Sr. became a celebrity (his fame as a designer and illustrator), celebrities like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mary Pickford frequented their home. The boy continued his father’s artistic searches, certainly surpassing him, and Andrew’s son himself finally formalized the right of the Wyeths to be called an artistic dynasty.

Christina's World, 1948

Perhaps it was due to his involuntary seclusion (Andrew even compared his father’s “school” to a prison) that the vast majority of Wyeth’s paintings were painted in his hometown of Chadds Ford in Pennsylvania and in his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Even after becoming a famous artist and losing his father in a car accident, Andrew did not want to give up his native land, for which he received the definition of a regionalist artist.

Hence the dominant “one-color” on the canvases: either sepia (either sun-burnt summer grass, or withered by autumn) grass, or snow. Wyeth's paintings are stingy with bright colors; all color solutions are hidden in halftones. Opposite examples can be observed only in the early canvases of the 30s, which marked the beginning of his creative life, And later works dating back to the early 2000s. Researchers of the artist’s work have suggested that the disappearance of brightness in the paintings of that time is associated with the death of Wyeth Sr.

Public Sale, 1943

Wyeth's main theme is quiet rural and provincial life, which, however, has nothing in common with pastoralism and humble realism. Yes, there are hints on the canvases that the characters were just doing or were about to start fishing, hunting or doing housework, but more often than not, paradoxically, the people in Wyeth’s paintings are not doing anything, being in a semi-somnambulistic unity with nature.

Many art critics deceived by Wyeth to this day stubbornly classify him as a realist, but any inquisitive eye will immediately notice an error in their arguments. Despite the solid realism of the presentation, the interior life of the paintings suggests that the main incident is left behind the scenes and the viewer will have to look in ordinary depictions of people, in landscapes and still lifes for a clue, an answer to the question: what exactly did the artist fail to capture? It is this “technique” that allows Wyeth to hold the viewer’s attention while contemplating the most ordinary things and phenomena.

Spring, 1978

The heroes of the artist’s paintings can be anyone or anything: people, clothes hangers, house walls, sea shells, curtains, snowdrifts, dishes, etc. The amazing shift in points of view on the world often prevents Wyeth’s portraits from being called portraits, and still lifes still lifes. As if fairy-tale bears have returned to their home, viewers look at the picture and try to understand who was wearing this raincoat, who was looking through this window, who owns the child’s dress hanging on the hanger; who fried lobsters on a fire, ate sea ​​urchins and feasted on oysters?

Everything depicted by Wyeth creates the impression of an understatement of the invisible presence of a certain force that sets the world in motion, but the viewer can only guess what kind of force we are talking about. Everything either happened a second before the appearance of the artist, and with him the viewer, or should happen about to happen. The most amazing thing is that this understatement does not irritate, it only excites the appetite of the viewer, like an aperitif.

Squall, 1986

Wyeth himself also did not fail to renounce the “accusations” of realism, noting that the people and objects in his paintings “breathe differently, deep inside each of them there is a hidden excitement, quite abstract” and, if you really look closely at the object of creative research, you will know its essence, then “there will be no end to the emotions that overwhelmed you.”

The artist’s words are confirmed by rare paintings at the intersection of surrealism and magical realism, which have run like a red thread throughout creative path Wyatt. However, even without resorting to such genres, he can create anxiety and tension in the viewer with the help of exaggeration, as in the film “Moon Madness”. It is not surprising that many directors (M. Night Shyamalan, F. Ridley) were inspired by the atmosphere of Wyeth’s films when creating horror films.

Moon madness, 1982

The ostentatious realism that hides the anxiety inside the canvas, as well as the recurring motifs of windows, numb, distant characters, in a sense, makes Wyeth similar to another American classic - Edward Hopper. For the portrait series “Helga,” Wyeth received accusations of voyeurism, traditionally characteristic of criticism of Hopper, but if through Hopper’s window you can see, or more precisely, spy on people’s lives, their monotonous way of life, then Wyeth often leaves the rooms empty, turning his gaze not inside the house, but outside . Nevertheless, the heroes caught by Wyeth are very similar in their numbness to Hopper’s heroes. However, the difference in emotions still does not allow them to be completely related.

Sleep

Wyeth’s characters are dominated by a calm, almost Levitan-esque, but not bright, not “eternal”, but a little melancholic, as if they were struck by a kind of “Comfortably numb”, pleasant numbness, like lyrical hero in a song by Pink Floyd.

Andrew Wyatt lived long life, having died at the age of 92, he left connoisseurs of painting his impressive creative legacy, which deserves close attention, study and admiration, of course, because awards are not so important for an artist (even if we are talking about the Congressional Gold Medal or the National Medal of Arts) , and, first of all, the attention of the viewer.

On the Edge, 2001

Adrift, 1982

Love in the Afternoon, 1992

Omen, 1997

Ring Road, 1985

Winter, 1946

Airborne, 1996

Black velvet, 1963

Turkey Pond, 1944

Wind from the Sea, 1947

Faraway, 1952

Embers, 2000

Arctic Circle, 1996

Man and the Moon, 1990

The Kuerners, 1971

Breakup,1994

Charlie Ervine, 1937

The Hunter, 1943

Young bull, 1960

Painter's Folly, 1989

Winter fields, 1942

Soaring,1950

Scuba, 1994

Brown Swiss, 1957

The Carry, 2003

Winter Carnival, 1985

Two If By Sea, 1995

Black Hunter, 1938

Siri, 1970

Indian summer, 1970

Walking Stick, 2002

Continuing the topic about American artists, started in the article about I want to talk about a wonderful American artist Andrew WyeteWyeth). I hope you will agree that his works, and indeed the artist’s life itself, are presented in its purest form.

Andrew Wyethue Full Moon. 1982.

Andrew Wyeth is one of the most admired and, at the same time, one of the most underrated American artists of the 20th century. Wyeth wrote in a realistic manner - in the era of modernism this was a huge courage. Critics accused him of lacking imagination, of pandering to the tastes of housewives, and of discrediting artistic realism.

Andrew Wyeth. Alvaro and Cristina. 1968.

Andrew was never a fashionable artist: often, when buying his paintings, museum curators tried to do it without unnecessary noise - so as not to be considered retrograde and to maintain their reputation. As for the housewives, they reciprocated Wyeth's feelings. His exhibitions were always sold out. " The public loves Wyeth, - wrote in 1963 in one New York newspaper, - because his characters' noses are where they should be».

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. His father, Newell Wyeth, was a famous illustrator. So famous that celebrities such as Scott Fitzgerald and Mary Pickford came to stay at his country house.

Newell did everything to awaken imagination and creativity in his children.

He had dozens of students. It is not surprising that Andrew began drawing almost before he uttered his first word. Andrew Wyeth always named his father first among his teachers. However, he quickly realized that, creatively, he and Newell were not on the same path.

Andrew Wyeth. Wind from the sea. 1947.

Reality attracted Andrew Wyeth more than book fantasies. However, his “magical” childhood was not in vain: in the simple northern landscape, in the simple weather-beaten faces of his neighbors, in the web of frost-covered weeds, he was able to discern something mysterious, irrational and often frightening.

Artist: preferred watercolor and tempera to oil; found poetry, philosophy and magic, which generously flavored his realism, in the faces of neighbors, friends and landscapes opening from the window.

When Andrew was 28, his father's car collided with a freight train at a railroad crossing. Since then, a feeling of loss has almost always been discerned in his paintings.

It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that Wyeth lived as a recluse. He did not react to the attacks of critics, avoided the bustle of society and did not seem to notice that the twentieth century was roaring and raging outside the windows. Wyeth was once reproached for not wearing his models. wristwatch- that’s how cool it is, according to the capital’s art critics, that he was late for the train.

Andrew Wyeth. Spring grazing. 1967.

Andrew Wyeth valued a solitary and measured lifestyle very much. He rarely left Chadd's Ford (with exceptions for his summer home on the Maine ocean coast). The artist painted only these two places. He made portraits only of the inhabitants of these towns - his friends and neighbors. So if we talk about “Andrew Wyeth’s world” in geographical terms, then it is tiny. But another feature of Andrew was that he had long, close relationships with peoplewhom hewrote, both with their houses and with the views that opened from their windows. And he had the strongest feelings for all his objects.

“A person returns from a journey not the same as before,” he said. “I don’t go anywhere because I’m afraid of losing something important - perhaps naivety.”

National love and critical acclaim nevertheless overtook the artist. When the wave of the abstract art craze subsided, it became clear that housewives have excellent taste, that old boats also have stories to tell, that Andrew Wyeth is one of the brightest and most important artists in the world. human history. In 2007, he received from the hands of President Bush Jr. National medal - America's highest honor in the arts.

In 2009, Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep at the age of 91. At his home in Chadds Ford, of course. Shortly before his death he said:

“When I die, don't worry about me. I don't think I'll attend my funeral. Remember this. I will be somewhere far away, walking along a new path that is twice as good as the old one.”

In 1913, at the Armory Show, works by masters who belonged to various areas of post-impressionism were exhibited. American artists were divided: some of them turned to exploring the possibilities of color and formal abstraction, others: Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Edward Hopper(1882-1967), Fairfield Porter (1907-1975), Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)...,developed the realistic tradition.

Wyeth, Andrew - American artist, representative of magical realisma is a singer from the Nordic northeastern United States.He painted tragic portraits of houses, roads, things, seasons, streams and people in watercolor and tempera. His work, classified by art critics as realistic, nevertheless sparked endless debate about the nature of modernism, and divided public opinion even more sharply than the debate over his contemporary, Andrew Warhol..

Preferring the tempera technique, which allows for particularly fine detail, Andrew Wyeth continued the traditions of American romanticism and magical realism, devoting his work to the emphatically “soil” landscape motifs of his immediate surroundings, as well as his neighbors, represented as archetypal figures of the “American Dream”. His landscapes and genreportraits (Winter day, 1946, Art Museum North Carolina, Raleigh; Christina's World, 1948; Young America, 1950; Distant Thunder, 1961...) over the years acquired an increasingly symbolic and generalized character. Ordinary landscapes of the rural outback, old buildings and interiors, people of the province, painted by Wyeth’s brush, look like visual stages of national history, presented in living, slightly sentimental images. Among his later cycles the most significant arePortraits of Helga, full of soft, poetic eroticism.

The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford is now largely devoted to the art of the Wyeth dynasty. Famous artist, an animal painter and secular portrait painter is the sonAndrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth ( ).

“It was hot there, I opened the window, and suddenly the wind blew up the curtain, which had not moved for probably 30 years. God, it was fantastic! A thin net of tulle flew up from the dusty floor so quickly, as if it were not the wind, but a ghost, a spirit for which a way out had been opened. Then I waited a month and a half for the western wind, but, fortunately, this magical wave lived in my memory, which sent a chill down my spine.”

There is such a thing - the great American novel. They mostly talk about him when remembering Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner and Jerome Salinger. They reflected the mood of the country's inhabitants and shaped the literary tradition and, to a large extent, the culture as a whole. And if you imagine the artists who reflectedon canvaswhat Faulkner and Salinger wrote about, one of the most important among them would undoubtedly be Andrew Newell Wyeth.

At Roque'sAlla Kent and Andrew Wyeth had very different destinies... Kent spent his whole life wandering around the world, as if someone was chasing him, looking for unity with nature in the most remote corners of the world. And Andrew Wyeth’s life flowed between his native Pennsylvania and Maine, where he went for the summer. He was a convinced homebody. And yet there is something that unites these two artists, and also Hopper, and many less famous Americans- This is the Great American Loneliness. The cult of individuality is America's pain and at the same time its glory. Each American, independently solving his problems, thereby created the foundation of American society. Without this cult there would be no

great country , as without Kent, Wyeth, Hopper there would be no Great American Painting and 20th century.

Andrew Wyatt and the Great American Loneliness

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917 in the small town of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, into the family of the famous book illustrator and painter Newell Converse Wyeth ().His father, who illustrated Stevenson, Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper, became so famous in the 20s that not only artists, but also Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Pickford and other stars visited the Wyeth house. The fields and groves near the house were lined with easels. Holidays were celebrated theatrically. On Halloween, such monsters appeared that the younger children trembled with fear until they recognized the artist they knew under the mask. At Christmas, my father, pretending to be Santa Claus, would stomp on the roof at night and lower gifts down the chimney. The father painted costumes, and the children enthusiastically played Fenimore Cooper's Indians, Robin Hood and Treasure Island.Andy learned art from his father. He lived almost constantly in his native land (Brandywine River Valley), and spent the summer months in Cushing (Maine).

Takeoff.

The first exhibition of landscapes by 20-year-old Andy at the Macbeth Gallery brought him a triumphant success - all the works were sold out within one day. Success followed subsequent exhibitions of watercolors, and led to Andy Wyeth's election as a member of the National Academy of Design.

In 1955, Andrew Wyeth became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in 1977 he was elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, in 1978 he became an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Arts, and in 1980 he was elected to the British Royal Academy.

What is he like, this romantic of the twentieth century? “I deliberately do not like to travel,” Andrew Wyeth writes in his diaries. - After a trip you never come back the same - you become more erudite... I'm afraid of losing something important to my work, maybe naivety."

“A great country does not need bright colors, but bright people. Greatness lies in simplicity. And the simplest and most natural color is gray, the color of ordinary earth, which was trampled by the shoe of a farmer, whose face, like the earth, was weathered by the winds and deprived of its color by the sweat of who works on earth."

In 1940, Andrew Wyeth married Betsy JaeJames, who was destined to play a big role in his work. Betsy was not only his model, but also his secretary, critic, and consultant. She came up with plots for his paintings, gave them names, and advised him to abandon bright colors. In 1943, their first child, Nicholas, was born, and three years later, James, who also became a fairly famous artist.

In October 1945, Andrew's father and his three-year-old nephew were killed when their car became stuck on railroad tracks in front of a moving train. The death of his father brought an end to Wyeth's youth. The tempera "Winter" was a response to the death of his father. Two years later in Maine, on the Olsens' farm, a master painting was paintedand "Christina's World".

Christina's world. 1948

In 1948, Wyeth began painting Anna and Carl Kuerner, neighbors in Chadds Ford. Their farm was located just a few yards from where his father died.

The fields, meadows, forests and hills of Chadds Ford became for him not just his homeland, but a meeting place with himself. great love. This happened in the winter of 1985. In his autobiography, the artist writes: “And then at the top of the hill a small figure appeared in a green, unfashionable coat with a cape. Covered with last year’s withered grass, illuminated by the blinding winter light, this endless hill suddenly approached. In this thin woman, whose hand hung in the air, I saw myself, my restless soul.” .

According to Wyeth, "it was a decisive, turning point in his life." He looked into her gray, pensive northern eyes and realized that he wanted to live and write again. He asked: "What is your name?". But his heart already knew - no matter what her name was, no matter where she lived - he was not able to forget these blonde hair, that delicate fluff of wheat above her upper lip, that shy blush on her pale cheeks.

This is the most famous cycle of Wyeth’s paintings - there are 240 of them in total. Perhaps an exceptional phenomenon, if not the only one, in the history of American painting. His favorite model was the German Helga Testorf from a neighboring farm; he drew and painted her for 15 years, hiding the work from everyone, even from his wife. It was main topic And main love all his life.

Distant

The relationship between the artist and his model was not interrupted until the end.the story of Wyeth's life. Helga entered the family and looked after her middle-aged friend when the time came for his physical weakness. Andrew Wyeth created the last portrait of his muse in 2002, when Helga was already over seventy.It’s no good to speculate on anything here.

Myself the artist did not want to answer the interviewers’ questions “about Helga”, he only explained that the concept of “love” for him does not mean carnal pleasure, but a spiritual feeling - “towards a favorite object, nature, person, warmth of attitude.” Adding: "This is how your beloved dog sits on your lap and you stroke his head. Love is something beautiful and real." Andrew Wyeth confirmed his amazing creative longevity with this cycle, gossipand eventually stopped.

“A man freed from the random circumstances of time” is, perhaps, the theme of his work with Helga.Intuition and imagination are a surer way of knowing the truth than the abstractI am logic or the scientific method. Following Whitman, the artist Wyeth brings American art of the twentieth century to the world level, because he sees in every person traits that are characteristic not only of the inhabitants of America, but also of all people of the Earth. In a simple woman, Helga, who worked on a neighboring farm, he discovers the whole world and perceives it as part of the Universe. Even painting her naked Andrew Wyatt seems to understand that this is just part of that continent called the soul. Helga's eyes and her unique sad smile are permeated with a special feeling of life. Through his love, the artist reflects on old age, youth, death and life. Their relationship could be guessed from the long walks around Maine that Andrew Wyeth and Helga loved so much. She walked and looked all the timeWhile looking for something, she often couldn’t see it and turned to Andrew. And he hastily made sketches. In his eyes, Helga saw a reflection of what was ahead, and he added something of himself to this reflection. What were they looking for in this small patch of Chadds Ford under the huge snowy sky above? Common sense? Happiness? Or the peace and quiet that the human heart so needs? The most ordinary things: the turning of the beloved’s head, the wind behind her, open window— Wyeth, with the great power of the artist, managed to raise him to an unusually emotional height. He, like Salinger's hero Holden Caulfield, carefully guards his little girl playing in the rye.

The canvas depicts a sleeping girl with an extraordinary sense of tenderness. She is afraid of the wind blowing in through the open window, lest it inadvertently disturb her long, sweet sleep. This is Andrew Wyeth's Helga model, which he drew and painted over 15 years. Perhaps an exceptional phenomenon, if not the only one, in the history of American painting

Of course, the experience of generations was not in vain for Wyeth; a kind of fusion took place in his creative consciousness, and in the portraits of Helga one can equally well see both Dürer’s completeness and the Renaissance principles of picture space. But this is only the sum of its parts. The main thing is not this. The main thing is these always lively eyes the color of icy water, this affectionate mischief in the corners of her plump mouth, and also her tenderness, like light snow, swift, flying...

In the work of Andrew Wyeth, the features characteristic of the American realistic tradition are palpable: idealization of farm America, passion for native places, for the accuracy of the image of the visible, sometimes close to topographical illusionorness. But all this is combined with his inherent subtle poetic perception of reality.and allowed us to connect it with the directionmagical realism. In the paintings of Andrew Wyeth there is a certain tension. He,rather, even surreal than realistic.

In 2007, the artist was awarded the National Medal of Arts, which was presented to him by the President of the United States at the White House.

Andrew Newell Wyeth

Andrew Newell Wyeth (English Andrew Newell Wyeth, July 12, 1917, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, USA - January 16, 2009, ibid.) - American realist artist, one of the most prominent representatives of US fine art of the 20th century. Son of the outstanding illustrator Newell Converse Wyeth, brother of the inventor Nathaniel Wyeth and artist Henrietta Wyeth Heard, father of the artist Jamie Wyeth.

The main theme of Wyeth's works is provincial life and American nature. His paintings primarily depict the area around his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Cushing, Maine, where the artist lived during the summer. He used tempera and watercolor (with the exception of early experiments with oil).

Andrew was the youngest child of Newell Converse and Caroline Wyeth. He studied at home due to poor health. He began to draw early and studied painting with his father. Wyeth studied art history on his own.

Andrew Wyeth's first solo exhibition of watercolors took place in New York in 1937, when he was 20 years old. All the works exhibited there were sold out quite quickly. Early in his career, Wyeth also did some book illustrating like his father, but soon stopped doing so.

In 1940, Wyeth married Betsy James. In 1943, the couple had a son, Nicholas, and three years later their second child, James (Jamie), was born. In 1945, Wyeth lost his father (he died in a disaster). Around this time, Wyeth's realistic style was finally formed. (Wikipedia)

Christina's World, one of Wyeth's most famous paintings

The painting shows Christina Olson, Wyeth's neighbor at his summer home in Maine, sitting in a field looking at her home. Christina Olson suffered from the effects of polio, and her determination and fortitude amazed Wyeth. Despite the fact that the image of Christina is presented in the painting, his wife, Betsy Wyeth, posed for the artist. The artist wrote about her: “Christina was limited physically, but not spiritually.”

The house the girl is looking at is the Olson farm in Cushing, Maine. Cushing was one of the main themes of the artist’s work, who spent the summer months here all his life.

Andrew Wyeth is one of the most adored and, at the same time, one of the most underrated American artists of the 20th century. Wyeth wrote in a realistic manner - in the era of modernism this was suicidal courage. Critics accused him of lacking imagination, in , that he caters to the tastes of housewives, in , that he discredited artistic realism.

Wyeth was never a fashionable artist: at times, buying his paintings, museum curators tried to do this without unnecessary noise - so as not to be branded as retrogrades and to maintain their reputation. As for housewives, they reciprocated Wyeth's feelings. His exhibitions were always sold out."The public loves Wyeth,- they wrote in 1963 in a New York newspaper, - for that that his characters’ noses are where they’re supposed to be.”

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917 in the tiny town of Chadds Ford in Pennsylvania. His father - Newell Wyeth - was a famous illustrator. So famous, what's in his village house, happened , such celebrities came to visit, like Scott Fitzgerald and Mary Pickford.

Newell mainly specialized in children's books. AND everyday life the Wyeth estate also resembled a fairy tale: the house was chock-full of pirate chests, knightly plumes, Indian tomahawks and other props, which Newell needed for work. An ordinary Halloween celebration in the Wyeth household could rival theatrical production average. Every Christmas Night Newell Wyeth, regardless of the likelihood of domestic injuries, climbed onto the roof dressed as Santa and entered his own house through the chimney. He did everything, to awaken the imagination and creativity in your children.

However, not only his own - Newell had dozens of students. The surrounding area was thickly lined with easels. Nearby barns, garages and everything, whatever is possible, was converted into art workshops. If you happen to visit Chadds Ford in the 20s of the last century, you wouldn't walk a hundred steps, without tripping over some paint-stained young talent.

Not surprising , that Andrew started drawing almost earlier, than he said the first word. Andrew Wyeth always named his father first among his teachers. Nevertheless, he quickly realized that in a creative sense he and Newell are not on the same path.

Reality attracted Andrew Wyeth more than book fantasies. However« magical" childhood was not in vain: in a simple northern landscape, in the simple weathered faces of the neighbors, in the web of frost-covered weeds, he was able to discern something mysterious, irrational and often frightening.

When Andrew was 28, his father's car collided with a freight train at a railroad crossing. Since then, a feeling of loss has almost always been discerned in his paintings. The invisible one became a frequent guest there., but that makes Death no less fascinating.

It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say, that Wyeth lived as a recluse. He did not respond to attacks from critics, avoided social fuss and didn't seem to notice that outside the windows the twentieth century roars and rages. Wyeth was once reproached, that his models don't wear watches - that's how cool it is, according to capital art critics, he missed the train.

Andrew Wyeth valued this secluded and measured lifestyle very much. He rarely left Chadd's Ford(making an exception for his summer home on the Maine ocean coast). He only painted these two places.“A person returns from a journey not the same as before,- he said. — I don’t go anywhere because I’m afraid of losing something important—maybe naivety.”

For the most part, Andrew Wyeth communicated with civilization through his wife, Betsy James.Betsy understood his work well and also had remarkable organizational skills. In an interview, she compared herself to a director, who had the best actor in the world at his disposal. Betsy gave the paintings titles, she tirelessly communicated with gallery owners and collectors, compiled catalogs - in a word, ran the business with an energetic and steady hand. The artist's youngest son is Jamie Wyeth,also an artist - joking, that one day I found in my mother’s desk drawer a photograph of my father with an inventory number on his forehead.

Of course, an introvert like Wyatt jealously guarded the boundaries of his world even from his wife. Sometimes - especially from her.

In 1986, Wyeth unveiled a series of paintings under the general title« Helga." In the early seventies, he met Helga Testorf, who lived next door to his summer home in Cushing. Since then Helgawas his regular model. About relationships (definitely beyond the professional) were known only to a couple of close friends. When journalists, accustomed, what Betsy traditionally says on behalf of Wyeth, they asked her, What does all of this mean, she answered laconically: “Love.” She was annoyed: 15 years of life, almost 250 paintings, and all this is beyond her control.“What was she waiting for? So that I spend my whole life painting old boats?!- Wyeth said later. — No , I know, I am a snake in the oats... I am a master of subterfuge...".

No matter how masterfully Wyeth maneuvered, national love and critical acclaim finally overtook him. When the wave of abstract art craze subsided, it became clear that housewives have excellent taste, that old boats have it too what to tell, that Andrew Wyeth is one of the most brilliant and important artists in human history. In 2007, he received from the hands of President Bush Jr. The National Medal is America's highest honor in the arts.

In 2009, Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep at the age of 91. Of course, at his home in Chadds Ford."When I die, don't worry about me,- he said shortly before his death, - I don't think that I will attend my funeral. Remember this. I’ll be somewhere far away, walking along a new path that’s twice as good as the old one.”(from article Andrey Zimoglyadov)