N.C. Wyeth, Eight Bells, detail
The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art, the current exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, has had mixed reviews. Here some local people comment on the show.
‘Dramatic light and vivid colour’
I found Andrew Lambirth’s review in the Spectator absolutely spot on.
It seemed we had looked at the exhibition with the same eyes.
The four boat paintings by NC Wyeth are simply the best I have seen for a long time. The intensity of colour, form and content draws you to into the painting. I also loved the gnomes bowling (an illustration of Rip Van Winkle)- their little expressive faces and the wonderful use of light. In fact use of light was the most fascinating aspect of NC’s painting.
In NC’s Eight Bells (1937) the light was what he was looking at, in the two men wrestling the whole was made by the use of different and dramatic light sources. In the painting of the Entering Monhegan Harbour by Jamie Wyeth (b 1946) the sparkle of light of the water took me back to my childhood and the time we spent sailing and on our cabin cruiser.
This is an exhibition with many aspects and certainly a talking point for people as there is such diversity in the paintings.
Judy Mewburn, Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery committee
NC Wyeth, The Astrologer emptied the whole of the bowl into the bottle
I went yesterday to see the Wyeths and was really surprised how much difference it made to my appreciation of NC Wyeth’s pictures to know that they were illustrations of books popular at the time, especially adventure stories. Having copies of the books open at the relevant pages, or just showing the cover, on display in the same room really added something.
Sue G, local resident
Jamie Wyeth‘s paintings are enigmatic, eerie, fantastical but intoxicating…
Jaime Wyeth, The Tempest, A Triptych
‘The Tempest, A Tryptych’ is weird. A goat drags a young girl in wellington boots forward, a faceless black-clad, barefoot ‘woman/ghost/concience/guilt-symbol’ seems to be trying to prevent this. At first sight it seems this woman has flowing red hair, but it is in fact billowing fabric. She hangs onto a flimsy tree trunk and there is spray and wind everwhere. What is going on? It is wonderful inspiration for a ghost story!
Harbor, Monhegan is a scary one too. An innocent young boy stands unconcerned in idyllically beautiful surroundings next to a huge fiery furnace (hell?) with demonic gulls screeching out of the canvas at us and a pile of trash at his feet. Soot streaks the evening sky.
Ingrid, co-editor DOV
What do you think is going on in Jamie’s pictures? We would love to publish your views. Email us – dulwichonview@googlemail.com or leave a comment.
The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art
Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 22 August
5 Comments
This ‘mixed reviews’ thing: isn’t it interesting? The critics have always had a hard time with Andrew Wyeth, so no surprises there. It’s a form of resentment, I think, that someone so individual, so seemingly ‘out of touch’ with his contemporaries, should be so much loved – critics do so love to feel superior to the general public. But in this country at least, the critics also seem to demand a ‘greatest hits’ approach to exhibitions (as long as it is the critics themselves who define what ‘greatest’ amounts to). Seeing the same ‘canon’ of paintings – as if ‘Christina’s World’ is the ONLY thing of Andrew’s that is worth looking at – has always bored me to tears, so I make no apologies for having gone for a sometimes quirky corporate collection. It is exactly that variety, and unpredictability, that I like. The critics all seem to dismiss Jamie – but the public seem to feel very differently, if the above comments are anything to go by. So:- critics vs public. It was ever thus…Meanwhile Jamie is probably enjoying himself too much (and too rich, let’s face it) to care. BUT NB critics – NC Wyeth’s reputation as one of the very best of the Golden Age of American Illustrators is cast-iron; you can’t throw THAT particular baby out with the bath-water.
In my view, of the three Wyeths in the current exhibition Andrew is by miles the best painter and repays close attention. As an aspiring watercolourist, I am awed by his command of the medium (including the impossibly difficult ‘dry-brush’ watercolours) and by his temperas. It seems to me that his paintings are above all truthful – not pretty or fancy, but searching, original and revealing of his often rather quirky subjects. OK, NC is a great illustrator – but I think James just trades on the family name.
I think that is maybe a little harsh on Jamie? He is very skilled technically, and there are one or two rather delightful pieces that I wouldn’t mind owning by him; but perhaps he doesn’t have his father’s rigour (however, he also doesn’t have his father’s slightly chilly quality). Oddly enough, he would have made an excellent illustrator of adventure stories like his grandfather – maybe he has been overawed by his father’s reputation into feeling he has to be a ‘proper’ artist. Where he is passionately interested – and I think that is the case with his pictures of animals and birds – his work begins to shine, and it is in those pictures that you feel that, for once, the ghosts of his father and grandfather are not standing over his shoulder.
I like your comment on Andrew Wyeth’s chilliness, Ian. It is undoubtedly apt, in his almost clinical depiction – dissection even – of the often rather strange inhabitants of New England – although the nudes have a touch of warmth denied to the older people. The buildings, too, are icily observed – and often in icy weather. There is almost no green in his paintings – autumnal decay or wintry cold are where he finds his inspiration.
Nevertheless, painters like Andrew Wyeth have the luxury of selecting what they want to paint and (I suppose) feel that they paint best. And he did this magnificently.
As for Jamie – yes, I agree with you – he seems overawed by his father’s reputation and would probably be more convincing if he openly made story-paintings – or illustrations. As it is, his big paintings seem to me to say ‘What shall I put in here to make it look interesting?’ They don’t, to me, convince. I too like the animals and birds.
All thought-provoking.
Please don’t forget Henriette. All four of her paintings on display were exquisite – such sensitivity to light and texture. It’s fascinating to compare Andrew’s austere, clinical painting of his granddaughter with Henriette’s lustrous, quasi-romantic depiction of her son on the opposite wall. Two astonishingly different modes of expression, both resulting in superb paintings.
While Jamie is not the equal of Andrew, the exhibition does contain some fine paintings by him. It intrigues me that they don’t always create the effect you’d expect. For instance, you’d assume that decaying Halloween pumpkins would be a sinister subject, but the richness of the colours almost turns the painting in a lyrical celebration of decay, like some of Stanley Spencer’s work. On the other hand, the picture of the barn draped in the stars and stripes after September 11th seems like an expression of uncomplicated patriotism, but the reflection of the flag distorts it into lurid colours and twisted shapes, as if undermining the patriotic message (in fact, the American flag is distorted or partially obscured in each of the Jamie paintings in which it features).
N.C. was, I think, the least of the four, but probably more because of the relative limitations of illustration as a medium than through any lack of talent. The luminous boat paintings, his Maine landscape and the Maine fisherman are all striking and dramatic works, that reveal his skill with colour.