Art: New character and mood in Wyeth show

Andrew Wyeth is a permanent, substantial presence at the Brandywine River Museum, where a large gallery is dedicated to his work. The museum changes the display there two or sometimes three times a year, so by now one would expect that the artist's vision would have been thoroughly exposed.

It has been, and yet the latest installation is a bit different in character and mood from those that have gone before. It also offers a few surprises. That's because it serves as a memorial tribute to America's most beloved painter, who died in January at age 91.

The exhibition comprises 36 paintings from almost all phases of Wyeth's long career, from landscapes in Chadds Ford and Maine, interiors, portraits, and female nudes. Only his earliest efforts, especially his vibrant watercolors of marine subjects from the late 1930s, aren't represented.

The effect is a condensed retrospective that touches on most of Wyeth's favorite subjects and locales, his various techniques, and especially his remarkable durability and consistency. Born July 12, 1917, Wyeth had his first solo exhibition when he was 20 and continued to paint and draw steadily and passionately until he died.

The keen eye for detail, sublimated emotion, and masterly technique that has characterized his art since the early years gives this exhibition its structure. A visitor who had never seen a Wyeth painting, even in reproduction (could such a person exist?), could absorb the essence of his art from these 36 works.

This show is familiar in some respects, but less so in others; it's the "less-so" part that should appeal to Wyeth aficionados. Half of the 36 pictures come from the personal collection of Wyeth and his widow, Betsy. Except for two loaned privately, the rest were drawn from the museum's collection - these are most likely to be the images that are most familiar.

The show is organized around thematic groupings. There's a wall of female nudes that features a young girl from Maine named Siri Erickson whom Wyeth painted in the 1960s and '70s.

There's another wall of portraits, anchored by the redoubtable Anna Christina Olson of Christina's World, perhaps the artist's most famous model, seen here as an elderly woman.

Wyeth was interested not only in faces and personalities, but also in where his subjects lived and worked. A prime example is the interior called Spring Fed, which depicts a utilitarian outbuilding on the nearby farm of Karl Kuerner. This locale in particular shaped Wyeth's fascination with character revealed through surroundings and anecdotal details.

The seasoned Wyeth fan might gloss over the summary view and focus on paintings that haven't had nearly as much exposure.

These include Blue Dump, a 1945 tempera of a Maine farm wagon; the 1945 landscape East Waldoboro that features a weathered Cape Cod house under a lowering sky; and a small 1955 still life, Monday Morning. It's just a washbasket leaning against a wall, but a marvel of white-and-gray Whistlerian harmony.

Even though there have long been, and will always be, Wyeths in this gallery, this hanging is poignant because it punctuates a celebrated career that ended only six months ago. For that reason, one is inclined to consider this Wyeth review not as routine, but as something special, something worth more than a cursory walk-through.

Hudson River glories. Speaking of paintings not usually seen in public, a compact exhibition of Hudson River School landscapes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, "Public Treasures/Private Visions," is a knockout in this regard.

The show is built around three masterpieces loaned to the academy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in exchange for three pictures from PAFA's collection that will be included in a New York show early next year of American narrative painting.

Iconic might be the most abused word in the English language (although presently and issues come close), but it legitimately describes one of the Metropolitan loans, Thomas Cole's view of a loop in the Connecticut River usually referred to by its short title, The Oxbow.

Cole was the fountainhead of the Hudson River movement, and this magnificent landscape-cum-allegory encapsulates the awe-inspiring conception of nature that the Hudson River artists sought to convey.

In Cole's 1836 view, the left half of the picture depicts untamed wilderness under a dark, threatening sky, while the right, sunnier half presents nature cultivated and civilized, a reasonable representation of the United States at the time.

The other two loans are a placid woodland scene by Asher B. Durand, also from 1836, and one of Albert Bierstadt's soul-stirring views of the Yosemite Valley, painted 30 years later.

Impressive and satisfying as these pictures are, the exhibition really owes its heft and appeal to the 12 private loans that constitute more than 40 percent of the checklist. The show splits neatly into a loan half in one gallery and an academy-collection half in another.

The loan half - the Metropolitan canvases plus 12 from several area collections - constitutes an exceptional group of landscapes by major Hudson River artists. They begin with the smallest canvas, a study by Frederic Edwin Church for his spectacular vision of the Ecuadoran volcano called Cotopaxi. Except for scale, the breathtaking concept is fully realized.

Add to this a superb example of Martin Johnson Heade's signature haystacks motif; Sanford Robinson Gifford's Mount Mansfield, a panoramic Vermont vista; a bucolic scene of harvesting by Jasper Cropsey; several other Bierstadts, including a view of Niagara Falls; and a seascape by John F. Kensett and you have a gilt-edged sampler of the Hudson River aesthetic.

This first coherent and important American art movement isn't one of the academy's strengths, as the second gallery, of works from the permanent collection, demonstrates.

Consequently "Public Treasures/Private Visions," like the traveling show of Hudson River art that came to PAFA in 2002, offers Philadelphians a rare opportunity to appreciate the emergence of the country's first masters of landscape.

9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. Admission is $10 general; $6 for seniors, students, and visitors ages 6 through 12.

Call 610-388-2700

or visit www.brandywine

museum.org.

"Public Treasures/ continues in the historic landmark building of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Broad and Cherry Streets, through Sept. 30. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $10 general, $8 for seniors and students with I.D., and $6 for visitors ages 5 through 18.

Private Visions"

Call 215-972-7600

or visit www.pafa.org.

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at 215-854-5595 or esozanski@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com

/edwardsozanski.