Artist

Andrew Wyeth

born Chadds Ford, PA 1917-died Chadds Ford, PA 2009
Also known as
  • Andrew Newell Wyeth
Born
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, United States
Died
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, United States
Active in
  • Port Clyde, Maine, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Born 12 July 1917, Chadds Ford, Pa., the son of illustrator and painter N.C. Wyeth, who instructed him in art. Family divided each year between Chadds Ford and New England, especially Port Clyde, Maine; a habit Wyeth has continued. Ill as a child, he was educated at home. 1932, submitted drawings to an exhibition at Delaware Art Center. 1936, exhibited at Art Alliance, Philadelphia. 1937, first one-man show, Macbeth Gallery, New York; work, mostly watercolors, sold out.

1940, married Betsy James. Learned tempera technique from Peter Hurd, his brother-in-law. 1941, exhibited temperas at Macbeth Gallery. 1943, included in "American Realists and Magic Realists" at Museum of Modern Art, New York. October 1945, accidental death of father. After this tragedy, began to focus more on painting people.

1952, Gold Medal, American Watercolor Society. 1963, first artist to receive Presidential Freedom Award. 1965, Gold Medal, National Institute of Arts and Letters. 1966, major exhibitions, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Baltimore Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago. 1970, retrospective, Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 1973, The Art of Andrew Wyeth, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco. 1976–77, one-man exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1977, first trip to Europe; inducted into French Academy of Fine Arts (only American artist so honored since Sargent). 1978, elected honorary member, Soviet Academy of the Arts. 1984, exhibition of works from his collection, Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford. Lives in Chadds Ford.

William Kloss Treasures from the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985)

Exhibitions

Media - 1995.27 - SAAM-1995.27_1 - 52089
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
June 18, 2009January 10, 2010
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the second in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper.

Related Books

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Variations on America: Masterworks from American Art Forum Collections
The American Art Forum, a small group of collectors from across the United States, was begun twenty years ago by Charles C. Eldredge while he was director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Now, as part of the Forum’s twentieth anniversary celebrations, the Smithsonian American Art Museum is proud to offer Variations on America, a volume of seventy-two treasured artworks collected by members of the Forum. Chief curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, deputy chief curator George Gurney, senior curators Virginia M. Mecklenburg and Joann Moser, former Luce Foundation Center curator George Speer, and curatorial assistant Elaine Yau present significant and lively contributions about these works.