N.C. Wyeth: Afterwards

"Winter 1946" by Andrew Wyeth

"Andy Wyeth returned again and again to the railroad crossing in the winter of 1946. The site of his father's death was surrounded by people and places he had known all his life and yet, until that winter, had never seen. Transformed by shock, he saw the familiar world of the crossing with new eyes. One day that winter Andy caught a glimpse of a neighbor's son running, nearly out of control, down the massive slope of Kuerner's Hill. It was Allan Lynch, the boy who had stood by his father's body to keep dogs away. Andy painted Allan as his surrogate, traumatized, disoriented, lost on the hill.

The pivotal point in Andrew Wyeth's life and art, 'Winter 1946' was a projection of the world of his future work. From that point on in portrait and landscape, Andy painted things as they were now, seen through the lens of N.C.'s absence. 'His death was the thing that really brought me to life,' said Andy, later adding, 'It gave me a reason to paint, an emotional reason. I think it made me.'

From 1971 Andrew Wyeth painted and drew a collection of work that recorded, among other things, the painter's involvement with his model, Helga Testorf, a homesick, German-born nurse who lived with her husband and children near the crossing where N.C. was killed. For the next fifteen years Andy withheld from his wife Betsy not only the fact of his relationship with Helga, but the work itself - 240 portraits, figure studies, and landscapes, including some of the best painting he would ever accomplish. 

Somehow Andy and Betsy's marriage survived. They continued to winter in Chadds Ford and summer in Maine. Year after year, as the list of Andrew's honors and prizes lengthened, as the sale of his temperas brought in millions, Andy became increasingly driven to preserve the legacy of the artist who had made it possible for him to paint. 

Betsy Wyeth became the authority on N.C. Wyeth. As the editor of his correspondence, she single-handedly established the foundation on which all future examination of the artist's life and work was built. Betsy had known N.C. only six years. In the decade immediately following his death, as she came to understand the breadth of his talent, her youthful resistance to her father-in-law broke down. After collecting his paintings and editing his letters, after studying his work and documenting on film his influence on Andrew, she would come to love N.C. without criticism. She would recognize that all along she herself had wanted his love and acceptance."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "N.C. Wyeth" by David Michaelis.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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