Chester County Press 1-21-2015 Edition

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CHESTER COUNTY PRESS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015

Jamie Wyeth...

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One floor of the exhibit is arranged basically chronologically, starting with drawings done in the early 1950s. “Aunt Carolyn,” which was preserved

by Wyeth’s mother in 1958, shows Jamie’s aunt, naked, answering the door for the mailman, who is peeking through the window at her. Clearly, Jamie was already displaying a gift for wry detail and the eccentricities of his family.

In the six decades since, he has completed some 3,500 works that are rooted in the realist Brandywine tradition but consistently pull at the constraints of his father Andrew’s style. Frequently, Jamie Wyeth surprises you with unconven-

‘Kent House’ (1972), oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches.

Brandywine River Museum of Art Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wyeth, 1985.

tional subjects, jarring colors, or humorous works that don’t readily explain themselves.

As a nod to the grandfather he never met, the first painting in the show is “The Child’s Illustrator” (2005), a resonant memory painting of N.C. Wyeth’s studio, with a ship model, doll furniture, vases and

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‘The Sea, Watched’ (2009), oil on canvas, 30 by 48 inches.

Private collection.

portrait busts on display. The poignant title is an acknowledgement of how the art world treated N.C.’s works -- as children’s illustrations, and not the great art he aspired to create.

“That studio has always had such an amazing effect on me,” Wyeth said. “As a child, I spent days there. At that time, it was full of my grandfather’s illustrations of Robin Hood and all these costumes. Then I’d go back to our home, which was my father’s studio, and he’d be painting a dead bird or something,” he added with a smile.

In one 1949 watercolor sketch of Jamie done by Andrew Wyeth, Jamie has added his own pencil doodle of a fisherman in a boat along the bottom edge. It’s a wonderful meeting point of the two artists, and shows Jamie’s early gift for examining things from an unconventional point of view.

Visitors will be surprised by “Record Player” (1964), a major oil in which the title object is completely obscured by the back of a person who is kneeling to change the record on the turntable. The dazzling “Portrait of Shorty,” done when Wyeth was only 17, clearly shows his masterful technique was acquired early. Among the other surprises,

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there’s an early study for “Draft Age,” a commissioned portrait Courtesy photos (3) of Helen Taussig from 1963 ‘Portrait of Shorty’ (1963), oil on canvas, 18 by 22 inches. that proved that Wyeth wasn’t Collection of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth. cut out for the politics of doing commissioned portraits, and her home in Chadds Ford. cliff at the viewer below.

“The Weather Vane” (1959), a He said the exhibit seemed like One room is dedicated to thewatercolor that’s very much in a homecoming for him. “There matically similar works done the Andrew Wyeth style, with a are an awful lot of ghosts running on Monhegan Island, where around here. The Brandywine is Wyeth has a home. The arching muted tone and telling details.

It contrasts vividly with the like the House of the Seven wing shapes and gaping beaks section of works produced when Gables,” he said, laughing. of the seagulls in his “Seven On the floor above, there are Deadly Sins” series give enorWyeth was working with Andy Warhol in the 1970s. Wyeth gets almost too many paintings to mous energy to the room. to the eccentric essence of the be absorbed in a single visit, There are also several dramatic artist in several works, particu- with the reconfigured gallery paintings based on his dreams, larly a 1976 portrait in which stretching nearly the length of in which Wyeth depicts N.C. Warhol looks vaguely startled the building. Here, you’ll find Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth surand his dog stares threateningly icons such as “Pumpkinhead -- veying a stormy sea, as Andy at the viewer. “I was fascinated Self-Portrait” (1972), the dog Warhol stands furtively at a by him, and spent a couple of portrait “Kleberg” (1984), the distance, watching them. years working with him. He was monumental “Raven” (1980), “Ice Floe” and “Berg,” very childlike,” Wyeth said. “We and “Sea Star” (1985), an oil of from 2012, are immersive, spent most of our time going to a gull on a shell-speckled beach, bone-chilling depictions of displayed in a frame studded ice blocks, blue-black ocean toy stores.”

There are several sketches and with thousands of tiny shells that depths, and Wyeth’s home on portraits of Rudolph Nureyev, as Wyeth said he gathered himself the shoreline, lit by a sliver of well as Wyeth’s riveting posthu- on the beach where he painted yellow-orange sky. mous portrait of John F. Kennedy. the gull.

Pausing in the gallery to surSeeing Wyeth’s work in person vey a wall of his works, Wyeth Perhaps most surprising are the two miniature rooms Wyeth con- is frequently a revelation. The recalled his father’s advice. structed using figures of famous glow of the sunlight in “Kent “The last words he ever said people and very detailed furnish- House” (1972) makes the rocky to me were, ‘Give ‘em hell,’” ings. Visitors have to peer inside coastline stand out in nearly he said with a wry grin. “So them to make out who is sitting three-dimensional detail, and the maybe I have.” inside. The works, completed in texture of the ram’s coat in “The “Jamie Wyeth” continues at 2013, are a complete departure Islander” (1975) is depicted in the Brandywine River Museum for Wyeth. But do they perhaps vivid detail. of Art (Route 1, Chadds Ford) echo the beloved dollhouses of Wyeth’s unique sense of through April 5. Visit www. his late aunt, Ann Wyeth McCoy? humor and scale is evident in brandywine.org for more Wyeth smiled and nodded. “Wreck of the Polias” (2002), information.

“Maybe they do,” he said, recall- which blends the looming menTo contact Staff Writer John ing his aunt’s “extraordinary” ace of a rusted propeller with Chambless, e-mail jchambwalk-in dollhouse that stood near two cute dogs peering over a less@chestercounty.com.

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