Last Chance Wyeth at the High
By Susan Soper, Executive Editor
When the High Museum of Art re-opened with great fanfare in November, the opening of the Georgia Aquarium threw a bit of a wet blanket on attendance for the Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic exhibit. But now that the show – a decidedly fresh take on Wyeth – is in its final month (it closes Feb. 26), we talked to curator Anne Knutson about why it should not be missed.
“These are works that are rarely seen, many of them are in private collections or the Wyeths’ collection, and they really do represent some of his very best work,” Knutson said.
The idea for the Wyeth exhibit actually started when the High’s Chairman of the Board Terry Stent acquired The Quaker. “When [High Museum Director] Michael Shapiro came to me about doing this show, he wanted me to come up with a new approach,” Knutson said. “I said, ‘I don’t know much. I was taught to hate him in grad school and taught to ignore him.’”
After putting together the show, she added, her perspective changed, and so has that of others. “The most gratifying thing has been the people who have said you have changed my mind....What you see is not what you get with him.”
Here is some of what Knutson shared about her work with the show.
On the “enormous” impact Betsy Wyeth has had on the work:
She got him to get those Frenchy colors – bright and vibrant – out of his work. They have been together since they were 17 and 20, so they’ve grown together, their aesthetics have grown together, and she creates these homes and interiors that echo his aesthetic....Which came first it’s hard to know entirely. And she titles all his work, giving the paintings a very specific interpretive gloss. They discuss them, she titles them – they don’t get into the process of the titling – but I’m assuming if he didn’t like the title he wouldn’t go with it.
On whether Wyeth has grown as an artist:
One of the big criticisms of Andy’s work is that it hasn’t changed over the years. This show shows that’s not the case. It shows how his style has changed quite dramatically over the years. This guy has this very private system of symbols and metaphors and nobody has attempted to unravel what these things mean before.
On the biggest surprise in curating the show:
He’s still painting today, and some of his works from this decade, since the millennium, are startling and wonderful in how he brings the contemporary into his world. The painting
Otherworld is really startling and so different and so unpredictably Andy, so late in life, bringing this brand new element – a corporate jet – into his work.
On Andrew and Betsy Wyeth in person:
He’s charming and flirty and funny, and he didn’t really want to get into talking about the details of his work. He didn’t like me asking questions about his old work – he feels totally talked out. Betsy is... more shy.
On her favorite painting in the show:
There’s one that gets lost in the shuffle, Sea Boots (at left)....I have always been intrigued by the animated quality of Wyeth’s things and wanted to figure out what was behind it all. Once the Wyeths opened up their private collection to us and I was able to
peruse through the drawings, I began to realize the source of this haunted, animated feeling in his paintings of objects.
In The Quaker, two coats hang facing one another as if they are in conversation. The elbows of one coat flare out as if the arms are gesturing, and the coattails of the other appear to move as if someone is shifting weight. It is almost like two ghosts are inhabiting the coats and having a conversation with one another.
On what there is here for kids:
There are some fun paintings for kids. For one of them, Dr. Syn, Andy took an X-ray of his own skeleton and has created this self-portrait wearing a Revolutionary outfit from the War of 1812, sitting in a lighthouse looking out a window.
For more information, www.high.org.
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