Andrew Wyeth Dead at 91

Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. In the early days of his career, art critics treated him like a Thomas Kincaide,a rustic painter of nostalgia and naivete. But later evaluations of his life's work remark on his melancholy and sense of alienation. A show at the Whitney titled "Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth" organized in 1998 tried to make up the difference between his popularity and lack of critical acclaim. Richard Merryman,who first wrote about him for Life in 1964,documented Wyeth dark and angry vision in his book "Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life"(Harper Collins, 1996),which refers to his total obsession with painting. Referring to his father the famous book illustrator,N.C. Wyeth, Andrew said,"I am the illustrator of my own life." He was not beyond hype as the release of the Helga Pictures showed. Claiming the paintings and drawings of Helga, a neighbor, had been kept from his wife, the so-called secret stash netted the Wyeths a small fortune just on their notoriety. On his most popular painting "Christina's World", he said," If I were really a good painter, I could have painted the field without her in it."