ANDREW WYETH is one of the most distinguished and popular contemporary American artists. Born in 1917 in Chadds Ford,Pennsylvania, Wyeth has lived and painted in the Brandywine Valley all his life. His work has been exhibited widely at major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art;Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco; and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.Wyeth is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
THOMASHOVING, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and former editor-in-chief of Connoisseur Magazine, is the author of many books, including Making the Mummies Dance, his best-selling memoir.A close colleague of Andrew Wyeth since the 1976 Wyeth exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, Hoving is co-author of Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography.
Adazzling look at six decades of paintings by one of America's favorite artists, this is the crowning book of Andrew Wyeth's career. This comprehensive survey reproduces 133 tempera, drybrush, and watercolor paintings and five pencil sketches-the only true retrospective of the artist's work ever published. But what makes this book truly extraordinary are Wyeth's comments about each painting-an "autobiography" told through conversations with Thomas Hoving--that offer fascinating, sometimes unexpected insights into Wyeth's life and artistic choices.Based upon a retrospective exhibition sponsored by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, that originated in Japan, Andrew Wyeth: Autobiography includes many seminal paintings from both his Chadds Ford and Maine work-including Distant Thunder, Green Room, and several paintings of Helga-as well as recent work and some rarely seen images.As Thomas Hoving writes in his introduction:"Wyeth, in essence, has always painted for himself." This beautifully printed, elegantly designed book reveals that self as no other collection has done before.
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Plates and Commentary
Personal Chronology
Chronology of Exhibitions
Selected Bibliography
Index
