Get your nose as close to the painting as the museum guard will allow, “scooch down and look up.”
That’s just some of the advice that surfaced during a presentation at the Brandywine River Museum of Art entitled "Wyeth on Wyeth: A Family Perspective." The program featured Victoria Browning Wyeth’s take on her uncle Jamie Wyeth’s retrospective, a sweeping show that spans his six-decade career.
Museum Executive Director Thomas Padon introduced Victoria Wyeth as “part of the DNA of the Brandywine.” The daughter of Nicholas and Jane Wyeth, granddaughter of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, and great-granddaughter of N.C. Wyeth has spoken frequently at the museum on the family’s art dynasty, “a subject she knows very well.”
Before beginning the presentation, Victoria Wyeth, 35, who works as a research assistant at Norristown State Hospital, insisted that she’s not an art historian. After graduating from Bates College in Maine with a degree in American cultural studies, she received a graduate degree in psychology in 2005 from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. “This is probably one of the most biased lectures you’ll ever have,” she promised.
Her goal, she said, was to deliver insight into her uncle’s work that would help viewers appreciate its nuances. To accomplish that, she used an animated, high-octane combination of prepared remarks, slides, and extemporaneous observations. In the process, she also got a physical workout, repeatedly traversing the short span from the podium to the display screen.
The date – Friday, March 13 – offered a fitting time to discuss a family for whom Halloween is a sacred holiday. Growing up Wyeth meant appreciating the macabre, accepting the unconventional, maintaining a sense of whimsy, and coming to terms with feeling like a character in “Dr. Doolittle,” surrounded by animals.
Victoria Wyeth said her uncle Jamie could make a mean mustard champagne vinaigrette, adeptly carve a pumpkin, tend to a menagerie of animals, and keep a painter’s apron “permanently cemented to his body.” Eager to share his love of horror films with her, he bought her a bunch of VHS tapes for her 8th birthday and they watched “Poltergeist” together – offering a preview of Victoria Wyeth’s perspective, which she self-identified as somewhat skewed.
A portrait of Jamie Wyeth with a pumpkin on his head didn’t seem that weird because “my grandfather took off his skin” for one of his self-portraits, Victoria Wyeth said, referencing “Dr. Syn,” a 1981 painting that shows Andrew Wyeth with a skeleton head. When someone once questioned her about the pumpkin’s sinister expression, she expressed surprise. “I thought of it as happy,” she said.
Studying Jamie Wyeth’s work provides a reflection of what he loves, she said. “He is painting his heart,” his niece explained. “My uncle buries his soul in his paintings, which I think is very special.”
She said one of his earliest acclaimed works, “Portrait of Shorty,” came about because at the age of 17, he was fascinated by a local street person with long hair who required some coaxing to pose. When Shorty arrived at the studio without his shaggy mane, he responded to Jamie Wyeth’s visible shock: “I got a haircut for my portrait.”
“Draft Age,” a famous painting of Jimmy Lynch, a family friend, features elements, such as the jacket’s zipper, that demand scrutiny for the intricacy of those details, Victoria Wyeth said, one of several times that she invited the audience to get close to the paintings. She said her Aunt Phyllis, Jamie Wyeth’s wife of 46 years as well as a favorite model, loved white wicker, another finely-executed texture in several paintings that merits inspection.
Andrew Wyeth eschewed painting from photos, a sentiment that his son shared, Victoria Wyeth said. Her uncle, whose tools varied from pieces of a broom to a paperclip, often painted ballet star Rudolf Nureyev from the wing of the theater, and he painted a mushroom worker as they both sat in the dark, damp, cramped quarters of a mushroom house, fixated on what looked like “little tombstones.”
Victoria Wyeth said her uncle’s “ornithological obsession” occurred naturally since her grandmother Betsy Wyeth, 93, is rarely seen without her “permanent necklace” – a pair of binoculars – as well as her bird encyclopedia. In fact, Betsy Wyeth catalogues her bird sightings as meticulously as the 1,100 drawings she annotated and saved from Jamie’s childhood. A handful of those early works appear in the exhibit and were supplemented by additional ones in Victoria Wyeth’s presentation.
Her uncle took the bird fascination a step further, though, Victoria Wyeth said, examining how they lived, ate, survived and mated. She said he would set up scenes to get reactions, scattering bits of hamburger, crab, or blueberry pie and hiding behind a rock with a sketchpad.
Since “seagulls love to steal,” Jamie Wyeth’s studies resulted in a series called the “Seven Deadly Sins,” using seagulls to depict transgressions such as gluttony and greed. She said her grandfather described his son’s work this way: “Most people paint seagulls to look like doves. Jamie captures the viciousness of them in their eyes.”
Victoria Wyeth said her uncle frequently exercised his penchant for humor and surprise. An 8-year-old boy hawking an unusual enterprise on Monhegan Island – “See the Cats, 50 cents, Lemonade, 10 cents” – resulted in the 1999 “Dead Cat Museum.” The 1980 painting “A Very Small Dog” features an elaborate wicker and wire baby carriage with an unexpected occupant. Victoria Wyeth said her uncle liked the idea of envisioning people going up to get a look at a beautiful baby in the stroller only to find a snarling, small dog.
After the hour-long program, Victoria Wyeth invited the 200 people in the audience to join her in the gallery, where she answered questions, signed autographs, posed for pictures, and even shot a short video for a spectator’s grandson in front of “Portrait of Pig.” Earlier, she explained that her uncle got the pig to pose by blaring classical music.
In one exchange, Victoria Wyeth chatted with Meg Watson, who flew from Colorado to see the presentation, and her brother Scott Watson of Chesapeake City, Md. Wyeth learned that the siblings’ aunt, Peg Jovin, had worked for 15 years as a housekeeper and cook for Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth and that the Watsons had fond memories of visiting the Wyeths’ home.
The Watsons even ended up with one of the Wyeths’ dogs, a llasa apso named Daffy. Scott Watson explained that the Wyeths weren’t able to keep the pet because it didn’t get along with the other animals and became hostile whenever anyone wearing boots approached, suggesting an abusive past. “We had 12 years with Daffy and loved her,” he said.
Seizing the opportunity to glean material for future presentations, Victoria Wyeth suggested that they likely had more wonderful stories that she’d love to hear. “I’ll even offer a bribe; what about lunch?” she asked.
Meg Watson wasn’t the only one who traveled from afar to hear Victoria Wyeth speak. Jim Aiello drove from Syracuse, N.Y., with Pam Johnson, who had to take a day off from work. “To say she’s entertaining is an understatement,” said Aiello. “Besides, this is one of our favorite museums.”
Johnson said it was well worth the 4 ½-hour journey. “She gave a different perspective that made us come back and look at the work again,” she said as she surveyed the gallery.
Robert LeMin Jr. of Lancaster brought his father, Robert LeMin Sr., a 92-year-old who shares the same birthday as Betsy Wyeth. He said he and his father have been attending Victoria Wyeth’s presentations for about 10 years.
“She’s just amazing,” said LeMin Sr. “I don’t talk that much in a month.”
Lara Kilgariff of Birmingham Township said her friend, Michele DeAugustine of Pocopson Township, persuaded her to attend the program after learning that she had never been to the museum.
“She was just great,” Kilgariff said of Victoria Wyeth. “She really kept your attention.”
DeAugustine said Wyeth’s discussion of how her uncle used his fingerprints in some of the paintings prompted her to examine them closer. “It’s a good thing he didn’t do anything bad, because they could get his prints pretty easily,” she joked.
Steve and SallyAnn Rogers, who live outside of Washington, D.C., spend time each summer on Monhegan Island, where Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth own a home. Both found the program entertaining and enlightening, especially when Victoria Wyeth displayed a painting that depicted their Monhegan hotel. “That’s our room on the third floor to the right,” whispered SallyAnn Rogers.
“She’s such a force of nature,” added Steve Rogers. “The family is fortunate to have her speaking.”
Victoria Wyeth recalled one of the last things her grandfather told her before he died in 2009: “Make ‘em look, Vic.” On that basis alone, Andrew Wyeth would have joined in the hearty, sustained applause the presentation generated.
Museum officials said tickets are still available for Victoria Wyeth’s March 19 program, which is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., with small plates and a cash bar starting at 6 p.m. Guests can tour the exhibition and other galleries after the presentation. The cost is $20 for members and $25 for non-members.
Tickets can be purchased online, by phone at 610-388-8326, or at the museum. For more information, visit http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/calendar_events.html.
"Jamie Wyeth" will be on display at the Brandywine River Museum through April 5. Located on Route 1 in Chadds Ford, the museum is open daily (except Christmas) from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. General admission is $15, adults; $10 seniors (65+); $6, students with ID and children ages 6-12. It is free for children ages 5 and under as well as conservancy members.
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