Andrew Wyeth Looking Beyond

Andrew Wyeth: Looking Beyond has been produced to accompany the exhibition of the same title held at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, March 24 - July 22, 2012.
Andrew Newell Wyeth was one of the most celebrated yet criticized American artists of the twentieth century. His lengthy career spanned nearly eight decades, but works from the 1940s and 1960s especially reveal an immensely productive period when Wyeth transitioned from watercolor painting to painting in egg tempera, which then became his primary medium. Coinciding with this shift, he honed a signature style: distinct and unusual perspectives applied to everyday subject matter.

Andrew Wyeth: Looking Beyond takes inspiration from Wyeth's use of windows, half-opened doors, and views through rooms. These traditional romantic emblems of transition and yearning are given new meaning in Wyeth's somber and solitary images. In addition, a lesser known side of the artist is explored through a close examination of his creative process. When working through an idea for a composition, Wyeth utilized different media, such as pencil, watercolor, dry-brush watercolor, and ink. He employed varied techniques and styles to build an evocative image over time.

The catalogue consists of two essays: In the first Erin Monroe presents an overview of the history of the Andrew Wyeth works in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and closely examines Wyeth's working methods and his use of windows and open doors to invite viewers to look into a distant realm--be it emotional or physical.
In the second, Patterson Sims places Wyeth's art within the tradition of Northern European representational paintings up to the early twentieth century. Sims offers a fresh interpretation of the artist by further positioning him in a larger historical and artistic framework, including the American Regionalists, the Abstract Expressionists, the Magic Realists, and contemporary art.