Jamie Wyeth
Encyclopedia
James Browning Wyeth is a contemporary American realist
painter. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania
, son of Andrew Wyeth
and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He is artistic heir to the Brandywine School
Tradition, painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware
and Pennsylvania
, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.
, a well-known artist in her own right, and the resident at that time of the N. C. Wyeth House and Studio
, filled with the art work and props of his grandfather. In the morning he studied English and history at his home, and in the afternoon joined other students at the studio, learning fundamentals of drawing and composition. He stated later, "She was very restrictive. It wasn’t interesting, but it was important." Through his aunt, Jamie developed an interest in working with oil, a medium he enjoyed at a sensory level: the look, smell and feel of it. Carolyn and Howard Pyle
were his greatest early influences in developing his technique in working with oil paint. In working with watercolor, Jamie looked to his father. James work in watercolor, while similar to his father, his colors are more vivid.
As a boy Jamie was exposed to art in many ways, works of his talented family members, art books, attendance at exhibitions, meeting collectors and becoming acquainted with art historians.
For at least three years in the early 1960s, when Wyeth would have been in his middle to late teens, Wyeth painted with his father. Of their close relationship, Wyeth had said: "Quite simply, Andrew Wyeth is my closest friend-and the painter whose work I most admire. The father/son relationship goes out the window when we talk about one another's work. We are completely frank-as we have nothing to gain by being nice." At age 19 [about 1965] he traveled to New York City
, to better study the artistic resources of the city and to learn human anatomy by visiting the city morgue.
Phyllis worked for John F. Kennedy when he was a senator and president. She served on several boards, including "the National Committee for Arts for the Handicapped, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Resource Defense Council."
in Maine
of Rockwell Kent
, famed illustrator of his grandfather’s generation. He's painted many of the local people there. Jamie and his wife have a home at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the Brandywine. In the 1990s his parents, Betsy and Andrew Wyeth, sold Jamie Tenants Harbor Light
on Southern Island in Maine that they owned since 1978. As it provides him the solitude and subject matter he most enjoys for his work, most of his painting is done at Tenants Harbor, the rest is done at Chadds Ford. The light station has been inactive since 1933. The tower that held the lantern was reconstructed for his studio.
In addition to studying his aunt's oil technique, he also admired his father’s and grandfather's work, and that of Howard Pyle
, his grandfather’s teacher, as well as American masters Winslow Homer
and Thomas Eakins
. What inspired Wyeth most was not the subject matter or technique of his grandfather, but his "sense of total personal involvement with and intuitive grasp of his subjects". Jamie Wyeth adopted a wider palette of colors than his father’s and closer to his aunt’s and grandfather's.
Wyeth's artistic reach is broader than his father's and grandfather's. He excels in drawing, lithography, etching, egg tempera, watercolor, and mixed media. Though grounded in this family’s artist tradition and subjects, and bound by the same solitude of his art, his wider travels and experiences have shaped a more rounded artist. In travels to Europe, he studied the Flemish and Dutch masters, and learned the intricate and exacting process of lithography, producing a substantial amount of graphic work.
On portrait painting, Wyeth stated, "To me, a portrait is not so much the actual painting, but just spending the time with the person, traveling with him, watching him eat, watching him sleep. When I work on a portrait, it's really osmosis. I try to become the person I'm painting. A successful portrait isn't about the sitter's physical characteristics—his nose, eyeballs and whatnot—but more the mood and the overall effect. I try not to impose anything of mine on him. I try to get to the point where if the sitter painted, he'd paint a portrait just the way I'm doing it."
Like his aunt Carolyn, Wyeth enjoys painting animals, such as chickens and dogs. To do so, he pays particular attention to the texture of the animals fur or feathers, the glossiness of its eye, the grass around its feet. To create the desired effects, he used brushstrokes for texture and varnish for sheen.
Lincoln Kerstein, a family friend of the Wyeth family, was the subject of his first major portrait of a prominent man, titled appropriately, Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein. Kirstein was impressed by the portrait and declared Wyeth the finest American portrait painter since John Singer Sargent. Kerstein's quote made it into the catalog for his first one-man exhibition, at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1966. Landscapes and portraits of people from the Chadds Ford area were presented at the exhibit.
. Although at one point scheduled for immediate deployment to Vietnam, flights were cancelled for noncombatants. His assignment changed when he was granted top-security clearance and took part in “Eyewitness to Space”, a program jointly sponsored by NASA
and the National Gallery of Art
in Washington to depict the activities of the Apollo mission through an artists' perspective. A total of 47 artists were involved in the "Eyewitness to Space" program, including Robert Rauschenberg
, Lamar Dodd
, Norman Rockwell
, and Morris Graves
. Participants met astronauts at launch sites, such as Cape Kennedy, or rode helicopters to observe the pickup of astronauts. Of the works developed, National Gallery of Arts chose 70 paintings, sculptures or drawings for "The Artist and Space" exhibit that ran from December 1969 to early January, 1970.
portrait for use on the 1995 Special Olympics
World Summer Games Commemorative coin. He also lent his support to lighthouse preservation efforts in Maine in 1995 with his exhibition, "Island Light".
Wyeth has illustrated two children's books, The Stray (1979), written by his mother Betsy James Wyeth, and Cabbages and Kings (1997), written by Elizabeth Seabrook.
Per Brandywine River Museum, "James Wyeth had earned national attention with a posthumous portrait of John F. Kennedy and other work. Later, he produced striking portraits of Rudolf Nureyev and Andy Warhol, studies for which are in the museum's collection. Since then, Wyeth has established a distinctive style, characterized by strong images and sharp contrasts in his landscapes and portraits. He is known for his monumental animal portraits, including Portrait of Pig and Raven in the museum's collection, which represents various stages in his changing style."
In "Jamie Wyeth: Proteus in Paint" Joyce Hill Stoner said of Wyeth: Jamie Wyeth lives on his own terms with a healthy respect for his heritage and a unique ability to translate acute observations into a spectrum of visual experiences in an impressive range of styles from the laser-like intensity of "Portrait of Shorty" to the archetypal but ironic encrusted image of an animal friend in "Portrait of Pig" to the eerie painterly dreamscape of "Comet".
Ann Morgan, author of "Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Arts" describes his style as one that follows the realistic style of his father, Andrew Wyeth, while into "more psychologically fraught territory." When making portraits, Wyeth sees into the nature of an individual and portrays them with such detail and realism that the shocked subjects "often hid them up in their closets."
, the Farnsworth Art Museum
, the Terra Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art
, the National Portrait Gallery
and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
.
In 1972 Wyeth was appointed a council member of the National Endowment for the Arts
. In 1975 he became a member of the board of governors of the National Space Institute
. He is a member of the National Academy of Design
and the American Watercolor Society
. He holds many honorary degrees including from Elizabethtown College
(1975), Dickinson School of Law
(1983) and Pine Manor College
(1987).
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
painter. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania
Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania
Chadds Ford Township is a township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, about 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia. Prior to 1996, Chadds Ford Township was known as Birmingham Township, Delaware County, and the name was changed to allow the township to correspond to both its...
, son of Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He is artistic heir to the Brandywine School
Brandywine School
The Brandywine School was a style of illustration and an artists colony in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, near Brandywine Creek, founded by artist Howard Pyle at the end of the 19th century...
Tradition, painters who worked in the rural Brandywine River area of Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, portraying its people, animals, and landscape.
Early life
James “Jamie” Wyeth was the second child of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, born in three years after brother Nicholas. He was raised on his parents' farm "The Mill" in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in much the same way as his father had been brought up, and with much the same influences. He demonstrated the same remarkable skill in drawing as his father had done at comparable ages. He attended public school for six years and afterwards was privately tutored by his family, concentrating on art. His brother Nicholas, his only sibling, became an art dealer.Artistic study
At age 12, Jamie studied with his aunt Carolyn WyethCarolyn Wyeth
Carolyn Wyeth Carolyn Wyeth, daughter of N.C. Wyeth and sister of Andrew Wyeth, was a well-known artist in her own right. Her hometown was Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She worked and taught out of N. C. Wyeth House and Studio. Her nephew, Jamie Wyeth was one of her students.-Childhood:Carolyn...
, a well-known artist in her own right, and the resident at that time of the N. C. Wyeth House and Studio
N. C. Wyeth House and Studio
The N. C. Wyeth House and Studio was a home of painter N. C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania.After N. C. Wyeth died, Mrs. Wyeth lived in the house until 1973, then their daughter, Carolyn Wyeth, lived there and painted in the studio until her death in 1994, when the Brandywine River...
, filled with the art work and props of his grandfather. In the morning he studied English and history at his home, and in the afternoon joined other students at the studio, learning fundamentals of drawing and composition. He stated later, "She was very restrictive. It wasn’t interesting, but it was important." Through his aunt, Jamie developed an interest in working with oil, a medium he enjoyed at a sensory level: the look, smell and feel of it. Carolyn and Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
were his greatest early influences in developing his technique in working with oil paint. In working with watercolor, Jamie looked to his father. James work in watercolor, while similar to his father, his colors are more vivid.
As a boy Jamie was exposed to art in many ways, works of his talented family members, art books, attendance at exhibitions, meeting collectors and becoming acquainted with art historians.
For at least three years in the early 1960s, when Wyeth would have been in his middle to late teens, Wyeth painted with his father. Of their close relationship, Wyeth had said: "Quite simply, Andrew Wyeth is my closest friend-and the painter whose work I most admire. The father/son relationship goes out the window when we talk about one another's work. We are completely frank-as we have nothing to gain by being nice." At age 19 [about 1965] he traveled to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, to better study the artistic resources of the city and to learn human anatomy by visiting the city morgue.
Marriage
In 1968 Wyeth married Phyllis Mills, one of his models. Although she had earlier been permanently crippled in a car accident and must use crutches to get around, Wyeth finds her a very strong, determined woman whose elusive nature means that he continually discovers something new about her. Mills is the subject of many of his paintings (which usually depict her seated) including And Then into the Deep Gorge (1975), Wicker (1979), and Whale (1978), as well as, by implication, his painting of Phyllis’ hat in Wolfbane (1984).Phyllis worked for John F. Kennedy when he was a senator and president. She served on several boards, including "the National Committee for Arts for the Handicapped, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Resource Defense Council."
Homes
In the 1960s Jamie purchased the Lobster Cove property on Monhegan islandMonhegan, Maine
Monhegan is a plantation on an island of the same name in Lincoln County, Maine, United States, about off the coast. The population was 75 at the 2000 census. As a plantation, Monhegan's governmental status falls between township and town...
in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
of Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...
, famed illustrator of his grandfather’s generation. He's painted many of the local people there. Jamie and his wife have a home at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the Brandywine. In the 1990s his parents, Betsy and Andrew Wyeth, sold Jamie Tenants Harbor Light
Tenants Harbor Light
Tenants Harbor Light, also known as Southern Island Light, is a lighthouse at the mouth of Tenants Harbor, St. George, Maine. It appears in paintings by Andrew Wyeth and his son Jamie Wyeth, who have owned the light house since 1978.-History:...
on Southern Island in Maine that they owned since 1978. As it provides him the solitude and subject matter he most enjoys for his work, most of his painting is done at Tenants Harbor, the rest is done at Chadds Ford. The light station has been inactive since 1933. The tower that held the lantern was reconstructed for his studio.
Style and technique
Early on, Wyeth became interested in oil, his grandfather's primary medium, although he is also adept in watercolor and tempera, his father's preferred media. In describing his aunt's way of thickly applying oil to her palette, he stated, "I could eat it. Tempera never looked particularly edible. You have to love a medium to work in it. I love the feel and smell of oil."In addition to studying his aunt's oil technique, he also admired his father’s and grandfather's work, and that of Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
, his grandfather’s teacher, as well as American masters Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
and Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
. What inspired Wyeth most was not the subject matter or technique of his grandfather, but his "sense of total personal involvement with and intuitive grasp of his subjects". Jamie Wyeth adopted a wider palette of colors than his father’s and closer to his aunt’s and grandfather's.
Wyeth's artistic reach is broader than his father's and grandfather's. He excels in drawing, lithography, etching, egg tempera, watercolor, and mixed media. Though grounded in this family’s artist tradition and subjects, and bound by the same solitude of his art, his wider travels and experiences have shaped a more rounded artist. In travels to Europe, he studied the Flemish and Dutch masters, and learned the intricate and exacting process of lithography, producing a substantial amount of graphic work.
On portrait painting, Wyeth stated, "To me, a portrait is not so much the actual painting, but just spending the time with the person, traveling with him, watching him eat, watching him sleep. When I work on a portrait, it's really osmosis. I try to become the person I'm painting. A successful portrait isn't about the sitter's physical characteristics—his nose, eyeballs and whatnot—but more the mood and the overall effect. I try not to impose anything of mine on him. I try to get to the point where if the sitter painted, he'd paint a portrait just the way I'm doing it."
Like his aunt Carolyn, Wyeth enjoys painting animals, such as chickens and dogs. To do so, he pays particular attention to the texture of the animals fur or feathers, the glossiness of its eye, the grass around its feet. To create the desired effects, he used brushstrokes for texture and varnish for sheen.
The beginning
With advice from his father, always his closest friend but always frank, Wyeth quickly developed his technique and style. In 1963, at the age of 17, he painted Portrait of Shorty, a bravura picture of a local railroad worker. Shorty was a man who lived twenty years in Chadds Ford. The man lived in a humble hut as a hermit, only speaking with a local store owner. The composition of unshaven Shorty against an elegant wing chair is unexpected. Joyce Hill Stoner, art historian and paintings conservator, found it has the "exactitude characteristic of sixteenth-century German oil technique."Lincoln Kerstein, a family friend of the Wyeth family, was the subject of his first major portrait of a prominent man, titled appropriately, Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein. Kirstein was impressed by the portrait and declared Wyeth the finest American portrait painter since John Singer Sargent. Kerstein's quote made it into the catalog for his first one-man exhibition, at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1966. Landscapes and portraits of people from the Chadds Ford area were presented at the exhibit.
"Eyewitness to Space"
From 1966 to 1971, Wyeth served in the Delaware Air National GuardDelaware Air National Guard
The Delaware Air National Guard is the air force militia of the U.S. state of Delaware. It is, along with the Delaware Army National Guard, an element of the Delaware National Guard...
. Although at one point scheduled for immediate deployment to Vietnam, flights were cancelled for noncombatants. His assignment changed when he was granted top-security clearance and took part in “Eyewitness to Space”, a program jointly sponsored by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
in Washington to depict the activities of the Apollo mission through an artists' perspective. A total of 47 artists were involved in the "Eyewitness to Space" program, including Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, Lamar Dodd
Lamar Dodd
Lamar Dodd was a U.S. painter whose work reflected a love of the American South.- Early life and education :Born in Fairburn, Georgia to Rev...
, Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening...
, and Morris Graves
Morris Graves
Morris Cole Graves was an American expressionist painter. Along with Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, William Cumming, and Mark Tobey, he founded the Northwest School. Graves was also a mystic.-Early years:...
. Participants met astronauts at launch sites, such as Cape Kennedy, or rode helicopters to observe the pickup of astronauts. Of the works developed, National Gallery of Arts chose 70 paintings, sculptures or drawings for "The Artist and Space" exhibit that ran from December 1969 to early January, 1970.
Political portraits and works
- Draft Age, made in 1965 during the Vietnam War, conveys a proud young man who may be required to serve his country to protect values that he may question. Made in oil, the picture shows mastery of the subject, message and medium beyond his nineteen years.
- Through his acquaintance with the Kennedy family, he was commissioned to do a posthumous portrait of John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Both Robert Kennedy and Ted KennedyTed KennedyEdward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
posed for Wyeth, and he studied photographs and films of the deceased president for three weeks. He attempted to portray JFK early in his presidency, perhaps in a moment of doubt or indecision over the Bay of Pigs InvasionBay of Pigs InvasionThe Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
, with the burden of power weighing on him. Jackie Kennedy thought the portrait accurate but RFK and other family members did not like the less-than-triumphal depiction. The painting did not hang in the White HouseWhite HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, and after stays at the French embassy in Paris, France and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, it found its permanent home at the Kennedy Library. Through great public acceptance, it has become one of the most famous images of JFK.
- Harper's MagazineHarper's MagazineHarper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
engaged Wyeth as a court artist for the Watergate hearings and trials that included U.S. Senate and the Supreme CourtSupreme courtA supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
proceedings regarding the impeachment of President Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, including the tense courtroom scenes in Judge John J. Sirica's trial of John EhrlichmanJohn EhrlichmanJohn Daniel Ehrlichman was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. He was a key figure in events leading to the Watergate first break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal, for which he was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury...
, G. Gordon LiddyG. Gordon LiddyGeorge Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...
, and other Watergate defendants.
- In New York during the 1970s, Wyeth painted President-elect Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
.
- In 1984 he painted "Night Vision" to commemorate the Vietnam Veterans MemorialVietnam Veterans MemorialThe Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.Its...
. This piece depicts a soldier of the Vietnam era as though seen through a Starlight scope or similar night vision device. It was later reproduced as a signed limited edition and sold to benefit the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial colloquially known as "The Wall."
His main body of work
- Portrait of Andrew Wyeth (1969) depicts his father with a serious expression. His eyes, something Wyeth focuses on to indicate character, are determined and focused. The ruddy face of his father, and the large buttons of Andrew’s naval coat, with all else in black, suggest Andrew was just arriving home fresh from a brisk walk by the sea.
- In New York during the 1970s, Wyeth painted Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Rudolf NureyevRudolf NureyevRudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
and Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
. Wyeth and Andy Warhol did two portraits of each other. In Portrait of Andy Worhal, Worhol seems to be "caught off guard without his personal persona." Nureyev's portrait reflects an intense man. Wyeth was fascinated by Nureyev and found him to have an animal-like presence and strength, that is captured in the portrait.
- Apart from visits to New York, his primary subjects in the 1970s and 1980s were the people, animals, and landscapes of his PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
home and of Monhegan islandMonhegan, MaineMonhegan is a plantation on an island of the same name in Lincoln County, Maine, United States, about off the coast. The population was 75 at the 2000 census. As a plantation, Monhegan's governmental status falls between township and town...
in MaineMaineMaine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
.
- Wyeth painted some of his most famous animal portraits, Portrait of a Pig (1970), Angus (1974), Islander (1975), and 10W30 (1981). Wyeth knows the animals that he paints and the work grows out of their kinship. When painting animals Wyeth changes the textures of the paint for to reflect fur, wool, or feathers.
- His self-portrait Pumpkinhead—Self-Portrait (1972), depicting a figure in black standing in a field with a pumpkin over his head, is as self-effacing as his father’s self-portrait Trodden Weed, (1951) showing only Andrew’s legs from the knees down.
- "Kleberg", painted in 1984, captures his love of animals, admiration of family and people he admired and favorite books. Titles of books indicate the close connection to his family, "Treasure Island," illustrated by his grandfather, N. C. Wyeth, "Christina's World" made by his father, and "The Stray," written by his mother, Betsy Wyeth and illustrated by Wyeth. Other individuals who earned his respected are represented: Howard Pyle in "Pyle's Book of Pirates", Lincoln Kirstein's "Lay This Laurel," and a biography of John F. Kennedy. Favored books include the children's book "Wind in the Willows", "The Magus" by John Fowles, and "The Wanderer" by Alain-Fournier.
- Much of his output since 1990 comes from Tenants Harbor. Wyeth’s fascination with island life is revealed in its more disturbing form in If Once You Have Slept on an Island (1996) which depicts a young woman sitting on a tousled bed who appears sad and exhausted from wild dreams. The title was derived from a poem by Rachel Field with the opening lines:
-
- "If once you have slept on an island,
- You'll never be quite the same."
- In 2002, Wyeth followed up with another humorous self-portrait Pumpkinhead Visits the Lighthouse.
Other efforts
Other noteworthy commissions in addition to his portrait of JFK have been the design of a 1971 eight-cent Christmas stamp, the official White House Christmas cards for 1981 and 1984, and the Eunice Kennedy ShriverEunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, DSG a member of the Kennedy family, sister to President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver, and in 1968, the Special Olympics...
portrait for use on the 1995 Special Olympics
Special Olympics
Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries....
World Summer Games Commemorative coin. He also lent his support to lighthouse preservation efforts in Maine in 1995 with his exhibition, "Island Light".
Wyeth has illustrated two children's books, The Stray (1979), written by his mother Betsy James Wyeth, and Cabbages and Kings (1997), written by Elizabeth Seabrook.
Critical reaction
When Wyeth had his first exhibition in New York in 1965 he received a scathing review by the New York Times. His work was compared to that of his fathers', neither of whom were considered contenders in the commercial business of modern art. Jamie Wyeth’s critics level some of the same charges as they do against his father—to some, both artists seem anachronistic, too close to illustration, and out of touch with the 20th century evolution of Post-Picasso modernism. He answers, "We're charged, my father and I, with being a pack of illustrators. I've always taken it as a supreme compliment. What's wrong with illustration? There's this thing now that illustrations are sort of secondary to art and I think it's a bunch of crap."Per Brandywine River Museum, "James Wyeth had earned national attention with a posthumous portrait of John F. Kennedy and other work. Later, he produced striking portraits of Rudolf Nureyev and Andy Warhol, studies for which are in the museum's collection. Since then, Wyeth has established a distinctive style, characterized by strong images and sharp contrasts in his landscapes and portraits. He is known for his monumental animal portraits, including Portrait of Pig and Raven in the museum's collection, which represents various stages in his changing style."
In "Jamie Wyeth: Proteus in Paint" Joyce Hill Stoner said of Wyeth: Jamie Wyeth lives on his own terms with a healthy respect for his heritage and a unique ability to translate acute observations into a spectrum of visual experiences in an impressive range of styles from the laser-like intensity of "Portrait of Shorty" to the archetypal but ironic encrusted image of an animal friend in "Portrait of Pig" to the eerie painterly dreamscape of "Comet".
Ann Morgan, author of "Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Arts" describes his style as one that follows the realistic style of his father, Andrew Wyeth, while into "more psychologically fraught territory." When making portraits, Wyeth sees into the nature of an individual and portrays them with such detail and realism that the shocked subjects "often hid them up in their closets."
Exhibitions
- In March 1987, Wyeth traveled to Leningrad to attend the opening of An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art, a major exhibition of 117 works whose rural subjects proved very popular with the Russian people. This followed a visit in summer of 1975 when Wyeth was invited to the Soviet Union to tour the country’s art museums, and he took the opportunity to meet with dissident artists.
- Wyeth's work became more widely known after being shown alongside his father's and grandfather's art at an exhibition in 1971 at the newly opened Brandywine River MuseumBrandywine River MuseumThe Brandywine River Museum is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth a major American realist painter, and his family: his father, N.C...
at Chadds Ford, the foremost repository for all the Brandywine artists. A highlight of the show was Wyeth’s Portrait of Pig, a seven by five feet painting befitting its subject’s size and status.
- In the last two decades, Jamie Wyeth has been presented at over two dozen exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad.
- Wyeth's works are presented at Mary Louise Cowan Gallery in Maine, exhibits have included: "The Maine Influence: Selected Works by James Wyeth", "Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer" and others.
- Farm Work by Jamie Wyeth is a 2011 exhibit at Brandywine River MuseumBrandywine River MuseumThe Brandywine River Museum is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth a major American realist painter, and his family: his father, N.C...
.
Museums and awards
Jamie Wyeth’s works are in the collections of the Brandywine River MuseumBrandywine River Museum
The Brandywine River Museum is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine River. The museum showcases the art of Andrew Wyeth a major American realist painter, and his family: his father, N.C...
, the Farnsworth Art Museum
Farnsworth Art Museum
The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry Lane, Frank Benson, Childe Hassam, and Maurice...
, the Terra Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
.
In 1972 Wyeth was appointed a council member of the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
. In 1975 he became a member of the board of governors of the National Space Institute
National Space Institute
The National Space Institute was a space advocacy group, the first of its kind, established by Dr. Wernher von Braun to help maintain the public's support for the United States space program. It has since merged, in 1987, with the L5 Society founded by Dr. Gerard K...
. He is a member of the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
and the American Watercolor Society
American Watercolor Society
The American Watercolor Society is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. It was founded in 1866 by eleven painters and, originally, was known as the American Society of Painters in Water Colors...
. He holds many honorary degrees including from Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown College is a small comprehensive college located in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania in Lancaster County. The school was founded in 1899 by members of the Church of the Brethren...
(1975), Dickinson School of Law
Dickinson School of Law
Penn State University Dickinson School of Law is the law school of The Pennsylvania State University...
(1983) and Pine Manor College
Pine Manor College
Pine Manor College is a private, liberal arts women's college located in Chestnut Hill, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1911 and currently serves almost 500 students, 75% of whom live on the campus.-Most diverse:...
(1987).