Presented August 8 - September 19, 2004

Sponsored by
The Hoover Foundation
The Herbert W. Hoover Foundation
The Timken Foundation
The GAR Foundation
Chubb
The Deuble Foundation
Diebold
The Repository
The Stark Community Foundation
Innis Maggiore Group
Ohio Arts Council
Fund for the Arts
The Volunteer Angels
Canton Fine Arts Associates
Unizan Bank.

"Braids" by Andrew Wyeth

The revelation that Wyeth had been secretly working with model Helga Testorf for fifteen years caused a nationwide media fury in the summer of 1986. After debuting in 1987 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. - the first time the museum featured a living artist - the exhibition traveled to major institutions in the United States and Japan.

Andrew Wyeth is perhaps the most celebrated American realist painter. Born in 1917, the youngest of five children and son of noted artist and illustrator N.C. Wyeth, he works primarily in watercolor and egg tempera. Wyeth's 1948 painting "Christina's World" has become an American icon; transforming a simple rural setting and a young woman into an evocative drama of longing and isolation. He has depicted paupers and Presidents, family and friends, neighbors and landscapes. The Helga series may be Andrew Wyeth's greatest achievement.

From 1971 until 1985, Wyeth undertook a long, intensive study of Helga Testorf. Helga was one of the artist's neighbors in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Wyeth's private project for these 14 years. He created approximately 240 works - - - the volume of work is characteristic in many ways of his approach toward a subject of special interest - - - repeated, investigatory and diverse. The way it was created was perhaps less typical. The series was done in nearly complete privacy, without revealing to anyone, the existence of the series, the identity of the model or the extent of the project.

This tour was organized by International Arts & Artists, Inc., Washington, DC.