No fewer than thee (count em’, three) exhibitions of his work are opening here in the next two weeks. This is certainly Andrew Wyeth time here in the Brandywine Valley/Philadelphia area. His landscape drawings also carry with them the familiar look (to me, at least) of the Brandywine valley and its gently rolling hills.

This is the Andrew Wyeth that I can connect with. They carry with them the feeling of the artist quietly and single-mindedly taking in his subject, and letting nature flow through his eye almost directly to the paper, without interference from an imposed “style” or other mental baggage. Wyeth’s landscape drawings are another matter. I came away feeling that, if I hadn’t known the famous name they were associated with, I might have thought them the work of a promising but unexceptional art student. Coming on the drawings unexpectedly may have given me an unusual prespective. I wasn’t paying much attention, and was at the NGA for an exhibit of Italian Master Drawings, and chanced on the “Helga” gallery. I stumbled across that exhibition by accident at the National Gallery back in the late 80’s when it was getting a lot of press (largely because of talk of an affair between Wyeth and the model). I’m less fond of his figurative work, like the famous “Helga” drawings. I like some of his drawings and watercolors very much, particularly those that are direct observations of trees, fields and other landscape elements. That being said, I still do enjoy the work of the “middle Wyeth” (his son Jamie is also a noted painter), particularly when his unusual compositions and strange silent spaces creep toward the surreal, as in “Christina’s World” and “Distant Thunder”. Wyeth is my favorite illustrator and one of my favorite artists in any genre. Mostly, though, it’s because his family heritage invites unfair and unflattering comparisons with his father, Newell Convers Wyeth, who left some mighty large footsteps to fill. Partly it’s because I find much of his work cold, not in the sense of his frequent depiction of winter scenes, which I like, but in the lack of warmth that I feel from him for his subjects. I should start out by admitting that, although I really like some of his work, Andrew Wyeth is not one of my favorites.

Andrew wyeth drawing