Arts

'Mysterious Familiar' at Somerville Manning offers another look at Jamie Wyeth's work

Delaware Public Media | By Karl Lengel

Published March 26, 2024 at 2:19 PM EDT

Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946) Blind Goat, 2023 Oil and acrylic on gesso panel 40 x 30 inches Blind Goat depicts one of the goats of Manana (Monhegan Island's barrier island.) Monhegan and Manana are 12 miles off the coast of Maine and while Monhegan has a year-round population of roughly 79 people. Manana is uninhabited except for several residents throughout its written history. A small, dilapidated structure seen from Monhegan's harbor conjures up stories of the hermit who built it: Ray Phillips, a New York grocer, and World War I veteran, sought a life of solitude and arrived by a small boat in 1930. He lived on the island with his sheep and goats for almost 50 years. His only neighbor was a Coast Guard Station on the other side of the island which is now abandoned. Like Hemmingway's cats, descendants of The Hermit's (as he is referred to) goats are Manana's sole inhabitants. Jamie Wyeth’s connection to Monhegan dates to the late 1950s, when he first went there with his father, and he has continued to paint there ever since. — **Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946),** *Blind Goat*, 2023, Oil and acrylic on gesso panel, 40 x 30 inches

*Blind Goat* depicts one of the goats of Manana (Monhegan Island's barrier island.) Monhegan and Manana are 12 miles off the coast of Maine and while Monhegan has a year-round population of roughly 79 people. Manana is uninhabited except for several residents throughout its written history. A small, dilapidated structure seen from Monhegan's harbor conjures up stories of the hermit who built it: Ray Phillips, a New York grocer, and World War I veteran, sought a life of solitude and arrived by a small boat in 1930. He lived on the island with his sheep and goats for almost 50 years. His only neighbor was a Coast Guard Station on the other side of the island which is now abandoned.

Like Hemmingway's cats, descendants of The Hermit's (as he is referred to) goats are Manana's sole inhabitants.

Jamie Wyeth’s connection to Monhegan dates to the late 1950s, when he first went there with his father, and he has continued to paint there ever since.

The Brandywine Museum of Art isn’t the only place to take in a new Jamie Wyeth exhibition this spring.

Somerville Manning Gallery in Greenville opens a solo exhibition of works by Jamie Wyeth April 5th.

‘Mysterious Familiar’ is running concurrently with the artist’s major retrospective, ‘Unsettled,’ at the Brandywine Museum.

It will feature 18-20 of the artist’s works - mixing new paintings shown publicly for the first time with many familiar works.

Somerville Manning Director Rebecca Moore says there are some new subjects, like Andy Warhol, and another interesting spin on Wyeth’s work.

“We’re going to have revisited paintings from older past paintings that he’s revisited in his current style. So his current style is very, very colorful, very textural and really expressive. So he’s taking those familiar subject matters and reinterpreting them to his 2024 style, which is interesting.”

Moore says Jamie Wyeth holds a unique place in the Wyeth legacy.

“He’s doing his own thing a lot of the times, too. He’s really one that separated himself and spent a lot of time in New York, and in different social circles than a lot people and the other Wyeth family.”

Jamie Wyeth’s ‘Mysterious Familiar’ runs through June 1st at the Somerville Manning Gallery in Greenville.

Wyeth’s show ‘Unsettled’ is at the Brandywine Museum of Art runs through June 9th.

Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.