Andrew Wyeth: Lines of Thought

September 20, 2014 - March 15, 2015
Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), Roasted Chestnuts, 1956

Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), Roasted Chestnuts, 1956, Tempera on panel, 48 x 33 in., Gift of Mimi Haskell, 1971, 71.5.1, © Andrew Wyeth

Over his remarkable seven-decade career, Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) created thousands of drawings in pencil and watercolor, a body of work that he rarely exhibited. 

The drawings in this exhibition provided a fascinating glimpse into his creative process. They were created by Wyeth in preparation for four paintings Faraway (1952), Corner of the Woods (1954), Roasted Chestnuts (1956), and Garret Room (1962). Each drawing was part of the process Wyeth used to work out his vision for his paintings. Many were sketched outdoors, and reveal Wyeth's immediate response to figures or objects in a composition. The exhibition included 23 sketches and three paintings.

Wyeth rendered his subjects in pencil drawings made with quick, gestural jabbing marks, contour lines, a range of shaded tones and dotted and scribbled lines. In the watercolor studies he wielded the brush freely to create flowing washes and dry, ragged swaths, and drew fine pen-like lines with the tip.

As these sketches showed, Wyeth focused in with raw energy on aspects of the composition isolating each element, whether a human figure or a treeand distilling its essence. The drawings made quickly in comparison to the time-intensive medium of tempera paintings in which he excelled allowed him an important degree of spontaneity. As the artist said, "My struggle is to preserve that abstract flash like something you caught out of the corner of your eye... that momentary off-balance quality in the very base of the thing."