Andrew Wyeth: The Man Who Caught the Heart of America

Andrew Wyeth, who died three years ago on January 16 at the age of 91, was a widely-known but solitary figure in the contemporary American art world. He painted with the realism doggedly adhered to during the decades of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and created some of the country’s most recognizable images. His depictions of rural scenes, figures, and interiors earned him some of the highest prices ever paid for the work of a living American artist.

Wyeth's subjects were always chosen from the area around his homes in Maine and Pennsylvania. These powerful but often unsettling pictures are a good barometer of American popular taste. No other contemporary artist has ever been so closely identified with the American nation’s vision of its rural soul.