Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth: Helga On Paper

FAMED HELGA PICTURES BY ANDREW WYETH TO BE EXHIBITED AT ADELSON GALLERIES IN NOVEMBER 2006

A Significant Selection of Watercolors and Drawings to be Shown For the First Time in New York City

New York, NY (September, 2006)—Approximately 60 of the nearly 240 now-legendary works by Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917), known as "The Helga Pictures" that created a stir in the art world and at large 20 years ago when the pictures featuring the artist's Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania neighbor and model, Helga Testorf, came to life will be on loaned view in Andrew Wyeth: Helga on Paper at Adelson Galleries in New York City from November 3 – December 22, 2006. Roughly half of the works on paper to be exhibited are watercolors; the others are drawings.

"Seeing the drawings and watercolors together presents a unique opportunity for the public. It is as though you were standing by the artist and observing his process," said Warren Adelson, president of Adelson Galleries. "The subtlety of the drawings and the nuance and deftness of touch of the watercolor technique is an aesthetic experience that can only be realized in person. Andrew Wyeth stands as one of the great draughtsmen and painters of the modern era, and we are thrilled to be able to present these extraordinary works to a New York City audience for the first time."

Created over a period of 15 years in near secrecy, the entire collection was purchased by Leonard E.B. Andrews, a publisher, collector and philanthropist and loaned to the National Gallery of Art in 1986 so the world could see this "national treasure," as Andrews referred to the group of works on paper. In an interview by Thomas Hoving with Andrew Wyeth and Helga Testorf in the artist's studio in Chadds Ford in 2002, the artist said of the works, "…The heart of the Helga series is that I was trying to unlock my emotions in capturing her essence, in getting her humanity down onto a panel or two. The medium didn't matter. … They all overlap. I worked for 15 years without anyone but Helga seeing them. If anyone had said, 'Andy, 'this is wonderful,' that would have held me back. If someone had spotted one and told me, 'that's no good,' that would have depressed me. … My intention was to keep 'em hidden away until I died. Then they could be revealed. … It all happened over the hill from where I was born. Not Europe or Venezuela, but right under my nose. … I'd do it all over again, if I had the chance. But it could never be repeated."

Wyeth explained in the Hoving interview why he chose to paint Helga: "I was entranced the instant I saw her. I thought she was the personification of all young Prussian girls and she possessed all the qualities of the Kuerner girls [a neighbor's daughters whom he had wanted to paint]. Amazingly blond, fit, compassionate. I was totally fascinated by her. 'God,' I thought, 'I have to have her as my next model!'" He continued, "The difference between me and a lot of painters is that I have to have a personal contact with my models. I don't mean a sexual love, I mean real love….I have to fall in love with [my models]—hell, I do much the same with a tree or a dog. I have to become enamored. Smitten. That's what happened when I saw Helga walking up to the Kuerners' lane. She was this amazing, crushing blond." After bumping into Helga's husband, Johnny Testorf, in Chadds Ford near Christmas, 1971, while looking for cookies to buy for his wife, Betsy, he learned that Helga baked them, so the artist dropped by their farm and "was once again enraptured by the way she looked." A few days later, he asked if she would pose, and "she said she'd be delighted," he told Hoving.

Among the works to be on display at Adelson Galleries is Wyeth's appropriately titled First Drawing, 1971, a pencil on paper. "The first drawing of her head really worked," Wyeth told Hoving. "I'd caught her perfectly. I did a number—3 or 4—but these were terrible. I threw almost all of them away. For a while, I couldn't catch her because I guess I was so enraptured by this amazing girl…. That was the beginning of the series."

A particularly important picture to be shown is In the Orchard, 1985, a watercolor on paper. Of this specific work, Helga remembered, "This was Memorial Day, a cool spring day. I had striped stockings for the holiday and you can see them—red and green."

Pageboy, 1980, a drybush, is yet another work to be on view in this show. Of the medium, the artist previously described it thusly: "Drybrush is layer upon layer. It is what I would call a definite weaving process. You weave the layers of drybrush over and within the broad washes of watercolor." [1] In his interview with Thomas Hoving, Wyeth said of Pageboy, "It's a funny title, for the hair is under a small coat I bought Helga in Spain. The studies [for Pageboy] show her long hair before I had her put the hood on."

About Refuge, 1985, another drybrush on paper included in Andrew Wyeth: Helga on Paper, the artist explained to Hoving, "Leaning against the tree after the storm she had a real pensive quality…. She was off somewhere far from me. I don't know even today what was on her mind. The mysterious woman…. I was especially keen about the way the snow from the Northeaster clings to the bark of the shellbark tree. To me it was a symbol of what mysterious thoughts were on her mind."

A fully illustrated, color catalogue with an essay by Thomas Hoving, the former director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the author of Making the Mummies Dance and other books, will accompany this exhibition and be available at the gallery for $25. Mr. Hoving has been a long-time friend and confidant of the artist, and his essay will include excerpts from an interview that was recently conducted. The catalogue also contains a personal foreword by Warren Adelson in which he shares his experience of seeing the Helga pictures in the artist's studio before they were brought to public light.

Adelson Galleries is noted for its expertise in the field of American art and the work of John Singer Sargent in particular. In 1980, Warren Adelson, an internationally recognized authority on Sargent, initiated scholarship on the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné in partnership with the artist's great-nephew, Richard Ormond. As of October, 2006, the first four volumes of the catalogue raisonné will have been published by Yale University Press. The gallery has also made significant contributions to the study of American art through critically acclaimed exhibitions and accompanying publications including Art in a Mirror: The Counterproofs of Mary Cassatt (2004-2005); Sargent's Women (2003); Maurice Prendergast: Paintings of America (2003); From the Artist's Studio: Unknown Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt (2000); Childe Hassam: An American Impressionist (1999); and Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes (1997).

Adelson Galleries is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:30-5:30 and on Saturdays during this exhibition from 10:00 – 5:00. Andrew Wyeth: Helga on Paper will be the inaugural exhibition at Adelson Galleries' new home, located at 19 East 82nd Street, New York, NY. Tel: 212.439.6800. E-mail: info@adelsongalleries.com.

[1] Wilmerding, John, Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987), p. 156.