Wyeth's Models

Wyeth was a controversial figure. Known by some as America's greatest living artist in his later years, others simply called him a fraud. Odd that such strong emotions were elicited by the work of a man who made his life engaged in a solitary pursuit.

He endured -- and worked -- into the 21st century, but he always will be associated with the 20th century, a time of expansion and upheaval in the art world.

Helga

Wyeth plugged along painting trees, barns, animals and people. What the critics who so harshly attack or dismiss his work miss is that the works were not about just the tree or the person. They were about his relationship to the object or person, but had universal overtones that go with the privilege of individual viewer interpretation.

A hillside could be his father. A woman could be a compilation of three different models. He was not a realist fitting the obvious definition of the word. He created abstraction from something you could recognize.

His themes progressed over the years and grew from circumstances in his life. His Christina Olson works, epitomized by his best known painting, "Christina's World," became a series about decay and death, as he painted her as she aged and became unable to care for herself or her home.

After Ms. Olson died, Wyeth started painting a 14-year-old girl named Siri Erickson, and those works -- mostly nudes, so he kept them secret until she was of age -- became about rebirth, renewal, innocence, beauty.

When Siri was no longer available -- a boyfriend reportedly refused to let her pose for Wyeth anymore -- he painted Helga Testorf, and their relationship became one of absolute trust. He could paint what he wanted of her without her flinching. He could look within himself and eliminate any self-established boundaries.

I believe Wyeth will always get a bad rap in art history classes because he eschewed 20th-century art movements and followed his own vision, one that happened to be enormously successful.

The Helga Pictures by Andrew Wyeth

For 15 years, America's most popular living artist worked in secret with neighbor Helga Testorf as model. The resultsome 240 pencil sketches, watercolors, drybrush, and temperas, concerned with Helga in all aspects, nude and clothedare here shown in 100 high-quality color plates and 160 black and white illustrations. Works in progress reveal the artist's methods; finished works, an obsession with his model as awesome as his technique. Wilmerding, deputy director of the National Gallery, contributes an informative text, further clarified by the artist's own observations. Gloria K. Rensch, formerly with Vigo Cty. P.L., Terre Haute, Ind. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.