Brandywine Art Guide: Unseen Wyeth works on display

For those that think they know everything about Andrew Wyeth, the Brandywine Museum of Art has a message for you: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Drawing from the nearly 7,000-object Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, Abstract Flash: Unseen Andrew Wyeth, the new exhibition that opened July 29, puts 37 never-before-seen abstract watercolors by the artist on view for the first time. Featuring scenes both familiar and inconclusive, it is an entirely fresh perspective on an artist that many may perceive as entirely, even overly, familiar.

“Untitleds are not unimportant simply because they are untitled,” said Karen Baumgartner, curator of the exhibition and Associate Collection Manager in the Wyeth Study Center at the Brandywine Museum of Art. Having worked with the artworks of Wyeth for decades, first for the Wyeths themselves and more recently at the Museum, she has a deep understanding of the vastness and variety of his full omnibus.

The collection has a new space within the museum as well, the Wyeth Gallery, a renovated area open to the public for the first time with this exhibition. The gallery will continue to show more works from the Wyeth collection as the rest of the collection is catalogued, studied, and analyzed, as well as other shows and exhibitions.

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The watercolors are a novel presentation of Wyeth’s work. “This show reminds us that Wyeth is a radical painter,” said William L. Coleman, curator of the Brandywine’s Wyeth Foundation Center and director of the Wyeth Study Center. It presents “an unexpected side of the artist’s personality,” he added, with “an unexpected dialogue emerging” amongst the watercolors in the gallery and the rest of Wyeth’s body of work. The gallery opens onto a room of Wyeth paintings that are more familiar, large-scale realistic tempera works that depict landscapes and country scenery. It is a juxtaposition that highlights both the similarities and the differences of the artworks.

Take Untitled (1948), reference number B0198, by the system Betsy Wyeth used to label every piece of art created by Andrew before deciding whether they would be displayed, sold, shelved, or otherwise placed. Watercolor on paper, from far away it is not all that different from other Wyeths, the familiar scenery and colors and, well, the Brandywine itself. But up close the abstraction takes over, the pools of color and the scraped highlights and natural flow of watercolor versus the precise control of tempera.

It is interesting to set this piece in the world of Wyeth, and in the wider world of art. In 1948, Wyeth released Christina’s World, one of his best-known pieces. Also in 1948, Jackson Pollock created No. 5, 1948, one of his most famous works which was sold in 2006 for $140 million. “It was the last high watermark of realism as modernism,” said Coleman. From then on, the modernist movement as it is commonly recognized took over. Rather than Wyeth and Hopper and their realist contemporaries, it was Pollock and Duchamp and O’Keefe and Kahlo and Koons and Mondrian and Rothko.

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Wyeth’s abstract watercolors provide another perspective on his place in this movement. “For the makers, the painters that are inspired by Wyeth, this will be a treasure trove,” said Coleman.

“He is always thinking about what he is saying and what to show,” said Baumgartner, discussing both Wyeth’s abstract and realistic paintings. The artist is “controlling the light and the scene,” but in the abstract works, the why of the painting fades away, allowing the viewer to focus on the composition itself.

The catalog for this show is forthcoming early in the fall, and will set this collection in the vast abundance of Wyeth’s work. It includes essays by Coleman and Baumgartner, as well as Eric Aho, a contemporary artist. This quote from Aho seems to get to the heart of this show, and Wyeth as a whole: “Painting is about the accumulation of experience.” Part of the future of the Wyeth Collection includes the creation of the Wyeth Study Center at Brandywine, which will be open to scholars, artists, and others for research. It will be interesting to follow along and see what these experiences will uncover.

Abstract Flash: Unseen Andrew Wyeth is on view at the Brandywine Museum of Art from July 29, 2023, through February 18, 2024. It will then travel to the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, where it will focus on the abstract works of Wyeth set in the Maine landscape. The Brandywine Museum of Art is located at 1 Hoffman’s Mill Road, Chadds Ford, PA. More information can be found online at Brandywine.org/Museum.

About Victoria Rose

Victoria Rose (she/her) is an editor, writer, avid reader, self-described geek, and fan of all things creative. Her passion for words has led to her current career as a freelance editor, and she is the owner of Flickering Words, an editing service. When not wielding a red pen (or cursor), she loves reading books of all genres, playing video, board, and word games, baking ridiculous creations to show off on the internet, or enjoying the gorgeous outdoors. She is a board member of the West Chester Film Festival and part of the Thirsty Monsters, a team of streamers from around the world who fundraise for various charities supporting LGBTQIA+ and accessibility rights. She can be found online @WordsFlickering or the Brandywine Art Guide @BrandywineArtGuide.