Word: wyeth
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...moment ignore the tattle, forget the blurbs and look at the pictures. The hubbub of controversy is stilled in the silence that these disquieting portraits demand. Imputations of Wyeth's motives are lost in the dark nexus where passion meets craft. Speculation on the course of his relationship with Helga turns to fascination with the development of graphic ideas and emotions in studies for final works. In the first sketch for Overflow, Helga is a thin, pretty, sleeping girl; the suggestive lines idealize her. And yet she breathes with youth and possibility. When the series is fleshed out, weight...
Every artist undresses his subject, whether human or still life. It is his business to find essences in surfaces, and what more attractive and challenging surface than the skin around a soul? No proof of cupidity there. This, at least, was the feeling of Wyeth's fiercely protective neighbors in Chadds Ford as they were besieged by reporters last week. The locals understand the artist-model relationship, and they figure they know Andy Wyeth. So dismissive are they of any charge of infidelity that they are willing to entertain -- and be entertained by -- the possibility of a Wyeth scam. "This...
...near tears as he said he wanted to protect his mother from being hurt. Told she was the subject for a famous artist's work, he said, "It doesn't do me any good, does it?" Helga, a fugitive from her sudden notoriety, was not to be seen. Carolyn Wyeth describes this quiet, almost reclusive woman as extremely upset by the tumult but flattered by the paintings: "She thinks they're wonderful." The neighbors' sympathy for her, though, is no match for their affection for Andy Wyeth. What he did for love, they say, is paint...
Back on Southern Island, Wyeth has turned away most requests for interviews, but did meet with TIME's Booth last Thursday. He declines to discuss Helga or her paintings, but he wants to clarify Betsy's use of the word love in relation to them. "People are going to think, particularly with this group of paintings, that it's a sexual love. It's not. We think of love only as two human beings in love. But it isn't in love. It's love. It's love toward an object. It can be a love toward those shells...
...artist is part camera, of course: he is the seer, adjusting technical and emotional focus to find a unique approach to the thing seen. Equally, he is reluctant to open the aperture on objects of his inspiration. In two hours, Wyeth has not mentioned Helga's name, referring to her only once as the "young lady." About the Helga series he will say only, "I feel -- not * all -- but there are a number of paintings in there that are as penetrating as anything I've ever done." Asked if he thinks it comprises his best work, Wyeth stares out toward...