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#456171 - Fri Jan 16 2009 09:41 AM RIP, Andrew Wyeth
tjoebigham Offline
Multiloquent

Registered: Sat Dec 25 1999
Posts: 2824
Loc: Fairhaven Massachusetts USA   
Artist Andrew Wyeth, best known for "Christina's World" and the Helga Testorf series, has died at 91 in Chadds Ford, Pa. He was one of the most renowned members in recent times of the famed Wyeth artistic dynasty, starting with the legendary N.C. Wyeth.

tjoeb}:>...

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#456172 - Fri Jan 16 2009 11:07 AM Re: RIP, Andrew Wyeth
jordandog Offline
Forum Champion

Registered: Tue Apr 17 2007
Posts: 5097
Loc: Ohio USA         
tjoeb, I did a double take when I saw this. I haven't heard a word or seen a thing about it all this morning.
His work has always left me wondering how one person could possess that much insight and such a gift, it is so powerful. America and the world has just lost one of it's greatest to come out of the 20th century.
RIP, Mr. Wyeth
_________________________
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.-- Richard Bach [i]Illusions

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#456173 - Fri Jan 16 2009 12:03 PM Re: RIP, Andrew Wyeth
MadMartha Offline
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Registered: Fri Apr 25 2008
Posts: 13908
Loc: Georgia USA
I loved his paintings, especially Christina's World. I am sorry to hear about his death.
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Thought for life: Be nice to all you meet on your way up, for you might meet them again on your way down!

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#456174 - Sat Jan 17 2009 02:05 AM Re: RIP, Andrew Wyeth
queproblema Offline
Mainstay

Registered: Mon Sep 25 2006
Posts: 869
Loc: Kenny Lake Alaska USA     
Even though he wasn't my favorite painter, I posted a question about him at AFT today.

I saw some of his work in Rockland, Maine, a couple of years after the Farnsworth paid the highest price up till then for work by a living artist.

My particular taste leans more towards his father's swashbuckling illustrations or even his son's, who compared him to Robert Frost, "At one level, it's all snowy woods and stone walls. At another, it's terrifying. He exists at both levels. He is a very odd painter."

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#456175 - Sat Jan 17 2009 07:58 AM Re: RIP, Andrew Wyeth
jordandog Offline
Forum Champion

Registered: Tue Apr 17 2007
Posts: 5097
Loc: Ohio USA         
Quote:

"At one level, it's all snowy woods and stone walls. At another, it's terrifying. He exists at both levels. He is a very odd painter."



I hadn't seen that from his son, but I think that puts in a nutshell why I like his work so much. The not knowing what dark or lighted corner of his mind was working when he produced a work.
_________________________
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.-- Richard Bach [i]Illusions

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#456176 - Sat Jan 17 2009 09:14 AM Re: RIP, Andrew Wyeth
ktstew Offline
Forum Champion

Registered: Tue Jan 18 2005
Posts: 8717
Loc: Arkansas USA
Quote:

My particular taste leans more towards his father's swashbuckling illustrations




Absolutely. One of the reasons I became a commercial artist is because of N. C. Wyeth - patriarch of the clan. His head was a dream factory filled with brigands, cowboys ogres and fairy landscapes. His imagination was high octane and his skill in rendering those images was unmatched.
Andrew was a fine artist too, but always tended to hide who he really was in order to be marketable to the public, I felt. Amid the endless crumbling house paintings, severe portraits and seascapes he cranked out, there were a few haunting works that were really worthy of him. Christina's World is a good example. It's a finely executed work, but not a pretty picture. And of course the Helga paintings, which were not discovered till recent years -they showed another hidden, fiery side of Andrew's heart. I'm sure the folks who bought his rocky seascapes didn't know they weren't coming home with the real loot.
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A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is just putting on its shoes - Mark Twain

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