Opening this weekend in the newly renovated Andrew Wyeth Gallery, the 37 never-before-seen abstract watercolors are drawn from the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, managed by the Brandywine.
The exhibition is a departure from Wyeth’s realist works. William Coleman - Wyeth Foundation Curator and Director of the Wyeth Study Center, says Wyeth had broad interests.
“This artist who was so well known and loved for his realist painting practice, surprisingly, was fascinated by abstraction - had close friendships with some abstract artists - found useful challenges for his work in these new ideas and possibilities, and this group of powerful abstract watercolors shows how he applied some of those techniques, even in his own work.”
The 20th century painter kept close to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and Rockland, Maine. Coleman says Wyeth saw a broader horizon.
“Andrew Wyeth story is a quintessentially American one - he is an outsider artist - a story like no other, who had so many different chapters in his creative practice, even though he was rooted in just two places for a long and incredibly productive career.”
Abstract Flash: Unseen Andrew Wyeth is on view at the Brandywine Museum of Art through February 18th.
Abstract Flash: Unseen Andrew Wyeth runs through February 18th at the Brandywine Museum of Art. Following its presentation at the Brandywine, which centers on Wyeth’s Pennsylvania work, Abstract Flash heads to the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine next summer 2024 with focus on the artist’s Maine abstractions.
