Andrew Wyeth was a local treasure as well as the most popular American artist of the 20th century.
Wyeth, who died Friday at age 91, became synonymous in the art world with the Brandywine River Museum, which has a permanent exhibit of his works.
His muted watercolors, many of them inspired by the bucolic scenery around his home in Chadd's Ford, are identifiable at a glance by audiences the world over.
Artistic genius runs in his family. Wyeth was the son of N.C. Wyeth, who became famous for illustrating classics such as Treasure Island. And he was the father of Jamie Wyeth, a famous painter in his own right.
Andrew Wyeth's paintings were deceptively simple and often tinged with dark themes. One of his most famous,
Christina's World
, shows a partially prone disabled woman isolated in a field, gazing toward a farmhouse in the distance. Painted in Maine in 1948, it remains one of the most recognized works of art in American history.
In 1987 Wyeth stunned the world with a collection that he had hidden for 15 years, even from his wife. They were paintings of a friend and neighbor, Helga Testorf, many of them nudes. It was Wyeth's last major exhibition, and the collection later sold for an astounding $40 million.
For all his immense popularity, Wyeth was reclusive. Perhaps owing to his intensely private nature, or perhaps due to a view that Wyeth was more an illustrator than a painter, the Philadelphia art community didn't always embrace him as it should have.
He wondered aloud to a magazine writer last year why it took the Philadelphia Museum of Art until 2006 to give him a show.
But the honors he received over the decades were many and deserved. He was the first living American artist to receive a comprehensive exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963; in 1970 he became the first living artist to have his work exhibited at the White House. Wyeth was the youngest person ever elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
His work has iconic status in the history of American art.
