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Judging Wyeth Again

For more than 70 years, Andrew Wyeth's realistic images have pleased regular folks and annoyed critics.  A new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this month will try to cement his reputation by revealing his work's emotional and intellectual roots.

Andrew Wyeth is not like you and me.

When we were young and thought life would go on forever, we squandered our time on video games or cartoons. Wyeth painted. When we realized that our names were also on Death’s list, we wallowed in pick-your-decade nostalgia. Wyeth painted. When we got bored with the spouse, we…well, hopefully, we did nothing. But Wyeth convinced Helga Testorf to get naked. And then he painted.

And that’s basically the point of the Wyeth retrospective, "Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic," opening this month at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) with parallel activities in Wilmington and Chadds Ford. The show, which concluded a three-month run at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art in February, is a look back at Wyeth’s entire career with a focus, not so much on the works themselves, but on what the artist was feeling when he created them.

"Something waits beneath it," a parallel exhibit of 32 early Wyeth works will be at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington until mid-July.

Officially, the show was conceived when the High Museum acquired Wyeth’s 1975 tempera painting, "The Quaker," which depicts two 18^th Century coats hanging from a mantel piece, and suggestive of two men engaged in conversation. Museum chair Terry Stent wanted some noise – a fresh interpretation – to mark both the acquisition and the Atlanta museum’s $109 million expansion by famed Italian architect Renzo Piano.

The interpretation, however, is more Freudian than fresh. According to the curators involved in the show, emotion and hidden meanings separate Wyeth from kitschy realists with whom the artist’s critics have long grouped him. The distinction matters because…well, because Wyeth is 89 and, actuarially, there probably won’t be many more opportunities to cement his reputation as a serious artist. Insuring the Wyeth legacy is important both to the artist personally and to the institutions that hold his work.

Plus, there’s nothing like an ambitious show to give the art experts a new excuse to squabble public over the quality of Wyeth’s work. That raises their profiles and can be quite entertaining.

Exhibit organizer Anne Classen Knutson, for instance, told the "Christian Science Monitor" that now is the time to reassess Wyeth's work: "People are ready now to look at this guy," said Knutson, an independent curator based in Atlanta. "It's pretty clear that people haven't looked closely at his art. If you get into him, there's a lot more to [see]."

On the anti-Wyeth side is an entrenched corps of critics such as Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker who, in 1987, famously wrote: "Wyeth isn't exactly a painter. He is a gifted illustrator for reproduction, which improves his dull originals."

Such critics seem unlikely to change their tunes. Just a couple of years ago, Schjeldahl called Wyeth "a regional reproof to all aspects of urbanity."

Hear that? "Regional." Which is to say, " minor, not world-class, OK-for-fooling-the-rubes." Wyeth has heard this sort of talk for much of his life. Success has provided partial compensation, but the artist admits that negative criticism still hurts. It "really knocks you flat," he told one writer, "like a stiff haymaker to the midsection."

One critic, Brian O'Doherty, thinks the disagreements about Wyeth may be a city-country thing. Wyeth paints rural scenes with an emphasis on its loneliness that people in crowded cities – or even suburbs – often just don’t get and, therefore, confuse with nostalgia. "I think he is grievously misjudged by city people," said O'Doherty. "What people see in Wyeth is sentiment, but country sentiment is a cover for all kinds of brutalities."

Born in Chadds Ford in 1917, Wyeth grew up in a family of artists. His father, Newell Convers "N.C." Wyeth (1882-1945), was a magazine and book illustrator who first came to the region at the turn of the 20^th Century to study with Howard Pyle (1853-1911). Pyle, a native of Wilmington, ran a free by-invitation-only school in an old mill near Brandywine Battlefield for the most talented students in his art classes at Drexel Institute. The senior Wyeth liked the Brandywine Valley so much that, after achieving his first successes, he returned, bought land and built a house.

According to biographer David Michaelis, N.C. Wyeth had a difficult childhood and, perhaps for that reason, determined to create an idyllic world for his own children. He guided daughter Ann's career as a composer, and taught Henriette, Caroline, and Andrew to paint. (He was Andrew’s only teacher.) N.C. taught his children – as Pyle had taught him – that the only way to paint something was to experience it. And so the Wyeth children began their artistic educations with endless romps through the woods, often dressed in the period costumes in which their father dressed his models. In addition to providing disciplined artistic training, N.C. wanted to free his children’s imaginations and sharpen their powers of observation.

And N.C. Wyeth saw that there was a lot to observe. A large, loud man who liked family gatherings and lively conversation, the elder Wyeth believed that great art grew out of a great and active life. So, he not only painted scenes on his farm, he plowed his own fields (with a horse) and chopped his own firewood. "Now, when I paint a figure on horseback, a man plowing, or a woman buffeted by the wind," he wrote, "I have an acute bodily sense of the muscle strain, the feeling of the hickory handle or the protective bend of the head or squint of eye that each pose involves."

Not surprisingly, then, Andrew and his siblings did farm chores, too.

So, after N.C. Wyeth was killed by a train at the Ring Road crossing in 1945, the Wyeth universe was effectively reordered. For Andrew, this was the end of what he later called his "blue sky" period of bright watercolors.

The younger Wyeth’s potential was first recognized in 1935 when he was included in an exhibit at the Art Alliance of Philadelphia titled, "The Wyeth Family." N.C.’s work was the main draw, but Andrew stole the show with 16 pictures including "Ruins – Washington’s Headquarters" and "McVey’s Barn." A 1937 show at New York’s Macbeth Gallery sold out so quickly that the gallery owner was left trying to placate regular customers who hadn’t yet seen it. He was, said one curator involved in the show, a "comer."

Critics, wrote Susan Strickler, director of the Currier Museum of Art, were "startled by the bold colors that young Wyeth used – the deep reds, blues, greens and vermilions of the Maine subjects and the rusty oranges, reds, browns and yellows of the Chadds Ford scenes. These are not the muted tones of Wyeth’s later work."

N.C. Wyeth’s death left his son with a more tragic view of life, as well as the freedom to explore it. Increasingly, his paintings suggested themes of loss, hidden danger and the precariousness of life. In the process, he turned away from painting people and began painting things. In particular, he focused on vessels – cups and buckets, usually empty and often upended – which, according to the show’s curators, are metaphors for loss. Windows, doors and thresholds represented the fragility of life, and the quickness of the passage from life to death. (One iconic image, "Cooling Shed," combined both motifs in a view of two overturned buckets seen through a door.) His colors grew muted.

Of particular interest to PMA curator Kathleen Foster is Wyeth’s "Groundhog Day," which her institution bought for $35,000 soon after it was finished in 1959, and which is included in the show along with a dozen of the artist’s studies for the painting. The image is an interior view of a kitchen window; in the foreground, a table is set for one, with a single plate and a single knife; through the window is a typically brown southeastern Pennsylvania winter. A log, wrapped in chain, lies on the grass.

To "get" the painting, says Foster, one needs to know that the kitchen was in the home of Karl Keener, at the corner of whose farm N.C. Wyeth had his fatal encounter with the train. Because of that association, the spot became something of a mecca for Andrew Wyeth, whose presence was tolerated by the sympathetic Kuerners. Eventually, he created hundreds of images at the Kuerner farm, including some of his best-known work.

Kuerner, a German veteran of World War I, did not outwardly resemble Wyeth’s cosmopolitan father. But his country rawness had an authenticity that the artist found comforting and inspiring.

"Karl became a surrogate for the father that Wyeth regretted he never painted and a figure from childhood battlefield fantasies come to life," wrote Foster, "the center of a galaxy of reveries about Karl as machine-gunner, deer slayer, hog butcher, master of death."

Wyeth created various studies for the image – some with Kuerner’s wife, others with the family’s "bad" dog, Nellie, which had a habit of snapping and barking. None quite worked until Wyeth simplified the scene. The final version includes no people. According to Foster, the place setting suggests the imminent return of Kuerner, who ate – in the old, rural European fashion – with one utensil, a knife. More, Wyeth allowed the log, with a jagged row of splintered wood, to represent the dangerous, snarling dog. The result? A sense of danger held at bay, though just barely.

Also suggestive of things unseen is Wyeth’s 1943 "Public Sale," which depicts a dark crowd of men near a farmhouse that is partially hidden over the crest of a hill. Why are they there? Unless one knows the title, there is no immediate explanation, though the painting has an undeniably funereal feel. In fact, the idea was born when Wyeth attended a farm auction that was necessitated by a death.

N.C. Wyeth probably would not have liked this stuff. The elder Wyeth was a very busy illustrator who worked closely with authors, editors and publishers, and had adopted a conventional sense of what was marketable. When N.C. saw Andrew’s 1944 painting, "Turkey Pond" – a rear view of a man walking toward a pond through tall grass – he reportedly dismissed it. "According to Wyeth, his father said, ‘Andy, that’s no sort of painting. You have to put a gun in his hand and add a few hunting dogs if you want it to sell,’" said Foster. (By then, Andrew was 29 and, presumably, had learned to ignore his father.)

As powerful as N.C.’s absence has been the presence of Andrew’s wife, Betsy. Had N.C. lived longer, the two would likely have contended to see who could influence Andrew most. They were not fond of each other. N.C. thought the marriage in 1940 would distract his son and was condescending to his daughter-in-law. For her part, wrote Foster, Betsy did not realize until, 25 years after N.C.’s death, when she edited his letters, that his work was "more subtle and complex than she had thought."

Betsy Wyeth likes subtlety. The daughter of a photo editor who worked in the era of black and white, Betsy understands the value of information that is left out. She supported Andrew’s shift toward austerity and encouraged him to give up bright colors. She also early took over the family finances and has been the primary builder of Wyeth’s worldwide market for reproductions, thereby freeing her husband from the business side of his career.

But strong personalities can repel. And Knutson counts it as part of Wyeth’s 1980s’ midlife crisis that he symbolically rebelled against Betsy by shutting himself away for three years with Kuerner’s nurse, Testorf. Wyeth produced hundreds of drawings and paintings, many nude, which produced a sensation when revealed to the public – and Betsy – as "the Helga pictures" in 1986. "Now, they think of it as a sexual exploit," says Wyeth in dismissing the rumors. "My God, the amount of work I produced, I couldn’t do both."

But only a few of the Testorf images are included in "Memory and Magic," perhaps to avoid reviving the old, prurient rumors. This, after all, is a show with the serious, intellectual goal of cementing Wyeth’s reputation as an American Master.

Where the heck is Chadds Ford?

Philadelphia is a new star in the art world. But Chadds Ford is not Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) which, with recent blockbuster exhibits – Cezanne in 2001, Degas in 2003, Rembrandt in 2004, Dali in 2005 – and diligent marketing, has created new awareness of the city among East Coast art lovers. Planned rebuilding of the Rodin Museum and a new Barnes Museum on the Parkway can only increase Philadelphia’s reputation.

Chadds Ford is home to the Brandywine River Museum, which owns 3,000 works by local artists of the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries. Most prominent are members of the Wyeth family, whose work is shown in two new galleries opened in 2003. The work of Andrew Wyeth is shown in its own gallery.

So, it’s natural to presume that PMA’s new exhibit, "Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic," would also be good news for the Brandywine River Museum. But any benefits are not guaranteed and may not come immediately.

"We’re 25 miles from Philadelphia," noted Halsey Spruance, director of public relations. "And that is a major obstacle for many people."

Residents of New York or Washington, he explained, will readily board a train to Philadelphia. But interest wanes if they must rent a car or take a 25-mile cab ride from 30^th Street Station. Similarly, visitors who drive here on I-95 -- clogged and headache-inducing as it is – nevertheless blanch at the task of finding and navigating Baltimore Pike (Route 1) to Chadds Ford.

Midwesterners – more car-savvy, perhaps, but nevertheless suffering from the magnetic pull of the Liberty Bell – aren’t much better, said Spruance. And that concerns him more because regular people, not the urban art cognoscenti, have always been among Wyeth’s biggest fans.

"I don’t worry about New Yorkers coming into town," he said. "I worry a lot more about people coming from Columbus, Ohio."

During the show, therefore, shuttle service will take transportation-timid visitors to the Brandywine River Museum from both PMA and the Delaware Art Museum, where a parallel Wyeth exhibit, "Something Waits Beneath It," will run through mid-July. Package deals with Philadelphia and Wilmington hotels will tempt visitors to stay over and see all three institutions.

Over the long term, though, Spruance sees the event mostly as advertising. Success will be less about attracting visitors during the exhibits than it is about using them to permanently raise the Chadds Ford/Wyeth image. For similar reasons, the Brandywine River Museum offers tickets through Center City vendors and the gophila.com website, said Spruance, even though it doesn’t expect to sell many. The visibility gained, he figures, may inspire a return trip to the region and, thus, be worthwhile.

The bottom line is that the transportation issue isn’t going away. So, visitors must know the museum exists and believe it is worth a trip.

Transportation is a major issue for all suburban art museums. PMA’s recent Dali exhibit drew approximately 370,000 visitors, 85 percent of them from outside of Philadelphia. That’s nearly three times the Brandywine River Museum’s entire annual box office (130,000 people), two thirds of which comes from those living more than 50 miles away.

Some museums don’t worry about long-distance visitors. In Doylestown, the Michener Art Museum considers its market to be primarily central Bucks County, said Amy Lent, marketing director.

"One of the things we have seen, particularly after 9/11, is that people don’t want to go to Philadelphia," she said. "A lot of people prefer to have a great art experience within a 20 minute drive."

Michener’s strategy is partly due to the nature of its collection. Pennsylvania impressionism – a genre in which Lent’s museum is rich – simply matters less to those in Manhattan than it does to local residents. Ad rates and a Philadelphia focus in regional marketing also make it tough for a small museum to get attention, said Lent.

But Wyeth is a nationally known, if controversial, artist, so the Brandywine Museum hankers after a wider audience. That’s driven lots of deep thinking, says Spruance, about how to distinguish the institution from the many others which also own some of the artist’s estimated 13,000 works.

"What we call ‘the critical difference’ is the landscape," he said. "It’s something that visitors to the museum cannot help but feel – from the parking lot planted with native-plant gardens to the façade, which is a converted grist mill." There is also the river itself, right outside the museum windows.

Better, the museum now owns and offers shuttle tours of N.C. Wyeth’s studio and home and the Kuerner farm, where many of Andrew Wyeth’s works were conceived. A kitchen window at the Kuerner farmhouse was the inspiration for the younger Wyeth’s 1959 painting, "Groundhog Day," featured in the current exhibit.

"They can walk the floors and feel like they’re walking into one of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings," said Spruance. "They are at the actual site of (his) inspiration."

Shuttle capacity is only about a dozen people, so tours are small and are offered only from April through November. But the experience can’t be duplicated, even by a big-budget Center City museum.

All Spruance has to do is get people to Chadds Ford.

Delaware Today

March 2006

Mark E. Dixon