Andrew Wyeth | The Helga Pictures
Posted on July 6th, 2009 by Scott Allen
Cover featuring Braids (Tempera)
After picking up Andrew Wyeth | The Helga Pictures, I had to share some visual and literal highlights. First, here’s a little back story..
“The Helga Pictures” are a fantastic compilation of tempera and dry brush paintings, watercolours and pencil studies secretly created within a span of over fifteen years. Andrew Wyeth created over two hundred and forty individual works of neighbour Helga Testorf from 1971 to 1985 without telling a single person, including his wife. He stated that he would not have been able to have finished the project with everyone looking at it.
Braids (Detail)
Braids (Study)
Sheepskin (Tempera)
Pageboy (Drybrush)
“Drybrush is layer upon layer.
It is what I would call a definite weaving process.
You weave the layers of drybrush over and within the broad washes of watercolor.”
Pageboy (Detail)
Lovers (Drybrush)
“There is motion in Rembrandt – his people turning toward the light.
But it’s frozen motion; time is holding its breath for an instant – and for eternity.
That’s what I’m after.”
Lovers (Study)
On Her Knees (Study)
Oct 11th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I have loved Wyeth’s work since I saw his first book as a teenager. Was recently at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine and saw originals for the first time – there are not enough adjectives to describe how unbelievably great his work is. Wyeth will soon be known as the greatest American painter ever. He was truly an abstract painter who painted in a realism style – he could not deny himself that he actually saw all the minute details of what he was painting. If anyone wants further insight on Wyeth read his biography A Secret Life – he was an amazing man who had absolute control over what he was doing – his paintings are very powerful. Thanks so much for the posting – very interesting website. Keep up the good work.