Andrew Wyeth American, 1917-2009
110.5 x 126.4 cm
Jacklight belongs to an extraordinary group of ambitious temperas Andrew Wyeth produced between 1979 and 1981, marking one of his most prolific creative periods despite—or perhaps because of—the clandestine nature of his concurrent work on the Helga series. At nearly four feet square, this panel stands as one of Wyeth's largest temperas. The haunting work depicts a doe in his father's apple orchard, rendered with the meticulous building up of detail that characterizes Wyeth's most significant temperas and infused with an ominous premonition of violence. The apples so near the doe's mouth are blood red, a visual analog of the blood that spews from the mouth of a kill, a "hanging deer." "I knew that local hunters were out trying to catch deer with their headlights," Wyeth told Thomas Hoving about this painting. "It's called deer jacking—totally illegal," he explained—hence the title of the painting, that term of murderous lawlessness, "jacklight."
Wyeth painted Jacklight in 1980, during the height of his secret sessions with model Helga Testorf, working simultaneously from two studios—his and his father's—to maintain his cover while producing some of his most psychologically complex works. Wyeth demonstrates his command of the tempera medium while exploring themes of innocence, predation, and the inevitable loss of Eden that would resonate throughout his career in the aftershock of the controversial unveiling of the Helga pictures.
Provenance
The artist;Michael L. Marcus, Malibu, California, 1980;
[Kuze Gallery, Japan]; to
Private collection, 1987; to
[Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 17, 2012, lot 36]; to
The present owner
Exhibitions
Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, France, Andrew Wyeth, Temperas, Aquarelles, Drybrush, Dessins, December 1980–January 1981, no. 17, illus.Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya, Japan; Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima-City, Japan; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography, February–November 1995, p. 120, illus. p. 121
Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya, Japan; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima, Japan, Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation, November 2008–May 2009, p. 151, no. 31
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina, Andy and Helga: This Whole World, November 18, 2015-February 14, 2016
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina, Wyeth Dynasty, November 16, 2016-September 10, 2017
Literature
"Andrew Wyeth — Tempera, Watercolours, Drawings," Art International, December 1980, illus.Gary Reynolds, "Previews: American Paintings, New York," Art + Auction, December 1982, p. 83
Gary Reynolds, "American Paintings," Art + Auction, December 1982, p. 82
"Jacklight Collotype," Reproduction, Chadds Ford Publications/Triton Press, February 1, 1982
Chadds Ford Publications, "Jacklight announcement," Reproduction Notecard, January 1, 1982
Funabashi Gallery, Andrew Wyeth: Tempera Drawing Prints, Tokyo: Funabashi Gallery, 1984, p. 14
DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park, Henry David Thoreau as a Source for Artistic Inspiration, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1984, pp. 42-42
Michael Sokolov, "Jacklight," Images of Hope and Despair, 1985
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, "Japanese postcards to accompany Autobiography exhibit," Postcard Reproduction, January 1, 1995
Andrew Wyeth and Thomas Hoving, Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996, p. 121, illus. in color
Sharon G. Hoffman, Experiencing Art at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina: Mint Museums, 2005, p. 34
Shuji Takahashi, Andrew Wyeth: Emotion and Creation, Nagoya: Aichi Prefectural Museum/Chunichi Shimbun, 2008, p. 151
Sarah P. Hanson, "Auction Review—New York Sales," Art and Auction, August 1, 2012
"Hopper's 'Bridle Path' Leads Sotheby's $34.8 Million American Art Auction," Antique & The Arts Weekly, July 6, 2012, p. 11
Ken Hall, "Gavels and Paddles," Collectors News, July 1, 2012
"American Art Market Gets Its Spark Back at New York's Spring Auctions, Led by Cassatt and Hopper," Artinfo.com, May 21, 2012
Shuji Takahashi, Andrew Wyeth (Japanese language publication), Tokyo: Tokyo-Bijustsu, 2017, p. 64
Steven Tingle, "American Beauty," Town, May 1, 2017, p. 82
"Jacklight," Bungei-Shunji, September 1, 2019
William Coleman, Karen Baumgartner, James Welling, Allison Slaby, Andrew Wyeth at Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth, New York: Rizzoli Electra, 2025, pp. 125, 155
