Wyeth began his
art career and a very early age. In 1929, at the age of 12, he produced
his earliest pen and ink illustration. He then turned to the use of
pencil and colored washes, ultimately moving to watercolor drawings.
At the age of sixteen, influenced by Winslow
Homer, he was creating bold impressions of light, tone, and movement.
Wyeth then disciplined his natural talent in order to present "the
truth of the object." To achieve his aim, he experimented with various
media, finally settling on "drybrush" watercolor and egg tempera painting.
These media require both time and patience, and Wyeth did not choose
them lightly. A finished painting is often the result of many months
of work. Final selection of a treatment is frequently accomplished
only after many pen-and-ink drawings have been done of his subjects.
Wyeth chooses his landscape subjects from two areas, Chadd's Ford
and Cushing, Maine, the places he loves best and in which he personally
is most deeply involved. He paints also the people he knows well.
He does not, however, paint as if he were using a camera, but brings
to his work the artist's extreme sensitivity, the painter's eye, and
the poet's ability to transcend the moment, to synthesize an entire
series of impressions into a crystallization of associated ideas that
goes far beyond simple realism.
Wyeth, now in his eighties, still paints every day and speaks publicly
on occassion. He is widely considered one of the greatest American
artists.
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