Andrew Wyeth
American, 1917 - 2009
Known for his regionalist style, American artist & painter Andrew Newell Wyeth was one of the best known artist of the mid-20th century. He was primarily a realist painter a noted for his depictions of buildings, fields, hills and people.
Art historians have often characterized Wyeth’s work as sentimental and antithetical to the abstract trajectory of 20th-century art. In the face of such criticism, Wyeth’s work has always been popular. He was the first painter to receive the Presidential Freedom Award, which President John F. Kennedy conferred on him in 1963. In 1977 Wyeth became the first American artist since John Singer Sargent to be elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, and in the next year he became an honorary member of the Soviet Academy of the Arts. In 1980 he became the first living American artist to be elected to Britain’s Royal Academy. His exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1967 established a new attendance record for that institution. A 1987 show of his so-called “Helga pictures,” organized by the National Gallery of American Art in Washington, D.C., was also very popular, as was a 2006 retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1990 he became the first artist to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 2007 he was a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts. Andrew Wyeth, Autobiography was published in 1995.
andrew wyeth paintings
Art historians have often characterized Wyeth’s work as sentimental and antithetical to the abstract trajectory of 20th-century art. In the face of such criticism, Wyeth’s work has always been popular. He was the first painter to receive the Presidential Freedom Award, which President John F. Kennedy conferred on him in 1963. In 1977 Wyeth became the first American artist since John Singer Sargent to be elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, and in the next year he became an honorary member of the Soviet Academy of the Arts. In 1980 he became the first living American artist to be elected to Britain’s Royal Academy. His exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1967 established a new attendance record for that institution. A 1987 show of his so-called “Helga pictures,” organized by the National Gallery of American Art in Washington, D.C., was also very popular, as was a 2006 retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1990 he became the first artist to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 2007 he was a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts. Andrew Wyeth, Autobiography was published in 1995.
andrew wyeth paintings
