Wyeth’s art helped to put Chadds Ford on the map
Saturday, January 17, 2009 4:18 AM EST
By John Chambless Special to the Chadds Ford Times

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917, in the home of his parents in Chadds Ford. He died Jan. 16, in his own bed, barely a mile away.In those intervening 91 years, he produced a body of work unique in the history of art. Spending a lifetime walking the roads and fields of Chadds Ford and the coastline of Maine, he created a world that can only be called “Wyeth-esque.”He worked fiercely, continually, always with a sketchbook in his hands. The trees, flowers and streams of Chadds Ford were depicted again and again, but always with a mysterious shadow over them. Some critics called Wyeth’s art superficial, but they didn’t know the depth of emotion behind every brushstroke.His works are not easily understood, although they are often easy to appreciate. His beautiful tempera surfaces, the microscopic detail in his pencil sketches, the drama of his watercolors — all hint at something just out of reach. That was Wyeth’s magic. His works are not so much about what we see, but what we don’t see.
For those who know how to read the works, their air of quiet menace, solitude and wildness are unforgettable. Far more than pretty landscapes and portraits, his works express both his love of nature and his awe of its power. They show his intense involvement with his portrait subjects, but also his clinical, unforgiving eye.Educated at home in the early 1920s, Wyeth studied with his father, N.C. Wyeth, beginning at the age of 16. In the studio situated above the family’s brick home on a hill in Chadds Ford, Andrew learned the basics of drawing and painting under the stern but loving instruction of his father.His first one-man show, at Macbeth Gallery in New York City, was a sellout. He was 20. The successes never stopped coming. He showed new paintings at the Brandywine River Museum in 2008.David Michaelis, author of the 1998 book “N.C. Wyeth: A Biography,” said in a 2000 interview that the Wyeths were “a family of not one, but probably three or four, true masters of American painting. They have produced tens of thousands of works; nearly all of them created in two places — Maine and Chadds Ford. And none of them imitative of other artists.“Andrew Wyeth has managed to stay fresh and original ... As a group of painters, they have restored place and nature to the center of the artist’s life,” Michaelis said. “That’s really their contribution to the century.”For many years, Andrew and his sister Ann were the only remaining family members who had experienced life in the creative hothouse of the Wyeth home. Ann went on to become an acclaimed composer and pianist, as well as a watercolor artist. She married painter John McCoy and lived in Chadds Ford. She died at the age of 90 in 2005.In a 2000 interview, she said of her brother’s work, “God knows everybody tries to paint like Andy. Which is too bad, because most (of their paintings) are dead. They miss the point someplace — the mood of the picture. I won’t mention any names. They paint things very closely, but that’s not the point.”Andrew’s son, James — known to friends and strangers alike as Jamie — is a world-renowned painter in his own right. He never knew N.C. But his close association with his father has given him rare insight into his working methods.In a 2000 interview, Jamie said, “the best contribution that we as a family have made is to be completely involved in our work, recording our experiences and the people in the country around us. We’re sort of a family of recorders. That, to me, is interesting. I think some of the best art is produced when it’s not meant to be art. I just try to record my feelings and emotions, but there’s no grand plan.“I think the fact that we’ve worked in the Chadds Ford and Maine areas gives (the work) a universality,” he said. “In an age when everything is so accessible and we’re bombarded with so much information, it’s unique and interesting to kind of limit yourself to one area.“Painting is next to breathing in the Wyeth family,” he said. “Having been very close to my father, I’ve seen the image created around him. He works night and day, does not sit back on his laurels. When he’s working, it’s a total contrast to what people think. He’s a wild man. He drops sketches on the floor, steps on them, moves on to another one. Amazing.”It can be hard to separate Andrew Wyeth from the places he painted. His life was so tied up in Chadds Ford that he seems to be everywhere at once.The faded scar of a train track on Ring Road marks the place where N.C. Wyeth was killed in 1945, along with his grandson, when a train hit their car. It’s within sight of the Kuerner farm, where Andrew devoted decades to sketching and painting every inch of the white farmhouse and outbuildings. He painted most of the “Helga” series there as well. The works — begun in 1971 and kept secret until 1985 — caused a media firestorm when they were revealed. The home of his model, Helga Testorf, is nearby. The majestic hill topped with a few skeletal trees, captured in many of Andrew’s paintings, overlooks the valley.It’s a place you can visit on tours sponsored by the Brandywine River Museum, along with the Wyeth family home. But seeing the places only skims the surface. Wyeth devoted his life to knowing them intimately. He became part of the lives of the Kuerners, and the Olson family in Maine, and Helga, and countless others.In published interviews, Andrew Wyeth has said, “I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason for painting but that. If I have anything to offer, it is my emotional contact with the place where I live and the people I do.“If somehow I can, before I leave this earth, combine my absolutely mad freedom and excitement with truth, then I will have done something.”