Andrew Wyeth, c. 1937. Archives of the Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center
Andrew Wyeth, c. 1937. Archives of the Andrew & Betsy Wyeth Study Center

"In 1936, watercolor painting in America reached a new phase, as a new national art form, one with proud historical roots and a new relevance for artists both progressive and traditional. 

Enter Andrew Wyeth."

-Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art Emerita, Seattle Art Museum

  

Andrew Wyeth was 20 when he burst onto the New York art scene. His solo exhibition of works at Macbeth Gallery in 1937 made headlines. It was a sold-out exhibition of watercolors inspired by Maine, a place of deep personal significance to the artist. The Wyeth family is part of the fabric of Maine and Wyeth had spent summers there since childhood. A critic for Art in America wrote in one of many euphoric reviews of the artist's coming-out exhibition, "Wyeth uses his brush with a really almost spectacular freedom." This energetic and unbridled approach to watercolor launched Wyeth's career and fame.  

 

Schoelkopf Gallery is delighted to present Enter Andrew Wyeth, the inaugural exhibition in the gallery's ongoing programming dedicated to the artist. On view from April 19 to June 28, but extended through August 9, 2024 the exhibition features 25 works in tempera, watercolor, drybrush, and pencil, and examines the stirring emotional resonance of Wyeth's work. The exhibition is composed of works created between 1939 - the year Wyeth met Betsy, his future wife and steward of his artistic legacy - and 1994. The gallery is honored to be supported in the exhibition by Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art Emerita, Seattle Art Museum. 

  • Click here to read Patricia Junker's essay "Enter Andrew Wyeth"
  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Bradford's House, 1939 Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth Watercolor on paper 17½ x 21½ inches 44.5...
    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
    Bradford's House, 1939
    Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth
    Watercolor on paper
    17½ x 21½ inches
    44.5 x 54.6 cm
    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
     
    A deeper, richer color appears in the latest works . . . Wyeth’s subject interest is the salty Maine fishing life, an environment in which he lives himself. A cove, a schooner wrecked or under sail, lobster traps, seashore farms, and other ocean-edge glimpses of color are starting points for his pictures. The artist’s technique defies formula; though it is in the tradition set moving by Winslow Homer, it is instinctive in its operation under Wyeth’s hand.

    ​​​​​​​—Art Digest, 1939

    SOLD

  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Far From Needham, 1966 Signed at lower left: Andrew Wyeth Tempera on panel 44 x 41¼ inches...
    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
    Far From Needham, 1966
    Signed at lower left: Andrew Wyeth
    Tempera on panel
    44 x 41¼ inches
    111.8 x 104.8 cm
    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
     
    A monumental granite boulder stood in the sheep meadow in the backwaters of the Saint George River where it ran behind the Wyeths' house, Broad Cove Farm, in Cushing, Maine. Here was a favorite place for Wyeth to paint, the spot reminding him of the landscape around his late father's family home in Needham, Massachusetts, a place that was a touchstone always for father and son. Even as he painted at far remove from the old Wyeth place, the Maine pines always reminded the artist of the fragrance of that long-ago family home and of the unforgettable sound of the wind whistling through the Needham pines. Coming upon the rock was like seeing a stone monument on a New England village green, Wyeth said. It was a fitting monument of sorts to the memory of his father, the larger-than-life character that was N.C. Wyeth, the rock of the Wyeth family.
    —Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art Emerita, Seattle Art Museum

  •  I work in drybrush when my emotion gets deep enough into a subject. So I paint with a smaller brush, dip it into color, splay out the brush and bristles, squeeze out a good deal of the moisture and color with my fingers so that there is only a small amount of paint left. Then when I stroke the paper with the dried brush, it will make various distinct strokes at once, and I start to develop the forms of whatever object it is until they start to have real body . . . Underneath that built-up dry paint is a luxurious wash and that’s why it works . . . Drybrush is layer upon layer. It is what I would call a definite weaving process.

                                                   —Andrew Wyeth

     

  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Silver Maple, 1954 Signed at lower left: A. Wyeth Watercolor on paper 14½ x 21 inches 36.8...

    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

    Silver Maple, 1954
    Signed at lower left: A. Wyeth
    Watercolor on paper
    14½ x 21 inches
    36.8 x 53.3 cm
    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

     

    Silver Maple showcases Andrew Wyeth's signature watercolor method. Wyeth described his principal technique as a "weaving process." Starting with initial layers of fluid, washed pigment, Wyeth then slowly built up the forms of the composition with meticulously placed strokes incorporating less water on the brush. In the present example, Wyeth attained realistic textural effects in the rough bark of the logs by utilizing the back of his brush to remove pigment from the paper. 

      

    The present watercolor depicts what was once a silver maple tree, cut down in order to add a kitchen addition to Wyeth's house. In 1954, the Wyeths lived with their two sons in a converted schoolhouse next door to Andrew's father N.C. Wyeth's home, where Andrew Wyeth was born and raised. A large silver maple stood in the yard behind and was felled when the Wyeths expanded the house to create a new kitchen. Notably, the schoolhouse served as the artist's Chadds Ford studio. 

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  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Wylie's Scythe, 1986 Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth Watercolor on paper 22 x 29⅞ inches 55.9...

    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

    Wylie's Scythe, 1986

    Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth

    Watercolor on paper

    22 x 29⅞ inches
    55.9 x 75.9 cm

    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

     

    In Wylie's Scythe, Wyeth captured the side of the shed at the Wylie dairy farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The scythe motif is recurrent in western art history, notably in American art in Winslow Homer's Veteran in a New Field (1865; The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Traditionally associated with death, the agricultural tool takes on additional connotations in Wyeth's watercolor. Here, the tranquil agrarian scenery surrounding the Brandywine River reflects the enduring theme of agriculture as an artistic subject, tracing back to the Mesolithic period. 

    —Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art Emerita, Seattle Art Museum

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  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Untitled, 1938 Signed at lower right: A. Wyeth / A.W. Watercolor on paper 14⅞ x 21 inches...
    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
    Untitled, 1938
    Signed at lower right: A. Wyeth / A.W.
    Watercolor on paper
    14⅞ x 21 inches
    37.8 x 53.3 cm
    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
    SOLD
  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) High Waders, 1984 Signed at upper left: Andrew Wyeth Watercolor on paper 29¾ x 21¼ inches 75.6...

    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

    High Waders, 1984

    Signed at upper left: Andrew Wyeth

    Watercolor on paper

    29¾ x 21¼ inches
    75.6 x 54 cm

    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

     

    For Wyeth, there was shock and majesty in these grand boots presenting themselves in such an arresting way, in this particular space. High Waders, painted in the centuries-old Brinton's Mill on Brandywine Creek, seems almost like the record of an apparition. The old mill was like that, it conjured phantoms. This was Andrew Wyeth's mill now, and it had been since 1958, when Betsy Wyeth undertook the years-long restoration of the historic Chadds Ford mill properties to make them the Wyeth family home. But the mill had two hundred fifty years of history that had intrigued the artist even from his childhood. 

    -Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art Emerita, Seattle Art Museum

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  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Turtleneck, 1984 Signed at upper right: Andrew Wyeth Tempera on panel 22 x 34¼ inches 55.9 x...

    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

    Turtleneck, 1984

    Signed at upper right: Andrew Wyeth

    Tempera on panel

    22 x 34¼ inches
    55.9 x 87 cm

    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

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  • Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Whalebone, 1973 Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth Watercolor on paper 21 x 29 ½ inches 53.3...
     
     
    Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
    Whalebone, 1973
    Signed at lower right: Andrew Wyeth
    Watercolor on paper
    21 x 29 ½ inches
    53.3 x 74.9 cm
    © Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
    SOLD

  • If you would enjoy learning more about the available works, please contact Alana Ricca at (212) 879-8815, or alana@schoelkopfgallery.com. We look forward to being in touch.