from a 2024 exhibition – UNSETTLED – at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA of the work of 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946

 

 

Jamie Wyeth is the third generation of  a celebrated family of painters: his grandfather was N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) and his father Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009). 

 

Now approaching 80, Jamie Wyeth has laid down his own accomplished, wide-ranging record – through realism and figuration – of landscapes and portraits of people and animals; and of narrative compositions. 

 

Throughout the decades, he has periodically engaged with the subject of unease in human life.  Sometimes it is unease amounting to discomfort; and sometimes it is apprehension which resolves in pleasure and even awe.

 

There may be a feeling of threat exuded by a place;

or an encounter with what is taken to be the supernatural;

or insight into the remorseless workings of nature;

or an alert suspicion which springs from an an inability ‘to read’  what is in front of us. 

 

Jamie Wyeth has said that his life has been full of ghosts; but that he is not about representing ‘spookiness’. 

 

In these paintings, he is about expressing the dissonance between what we see or hear, what we think we know, and what we feel in moments of sudden psychosomatic dislocation. 

 

Like his parents, the artist has homes in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and in Maine: on Monhegan Island and Southern Island; and these are often the context of these paintings.

 

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Record Player, 1964, oil on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

Lester Stanley, a model for the artist in the 1960’s, is crouched looking at a record player. 

But we don’t know this and we become curious, then suspicious and also alarmed at the idea that this man may turn around suddenly and look at us staring at his back.

 

 

 

 

Pom Pom’s Cadillac, Broad Cove’s Farm, 1965, watercolour on paper

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

The car has been cropped; and also the house.  This controls what we can see; and we become suspicious of what we are seeing.

 

 

 

Barn Door, Broad Cove Farmhay, c. 1965, watercolour on paper

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

River Trunk, 1968, watercolour on paper.

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Buzz Saw, 1969, oil on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

Scavenger, 1974, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2023 to the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

 

 

 

 

Lightning Struck, 1975, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1947.  Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

 

The Raven 1980, oil on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946, Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

 

Bean Boots, 1985; oil on panel.  Jamie Wyeth, American born 1947.

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine loan to the Brandywine River Museum in 2024

 

 

 

 

Portrait of Michael Jackson, 1985, mixed media on board

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

Giuliana and the Sunflowers, 1987, oil on board

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

The little girl, Giuliana, is unaware of the caution that has overtaken her mother as they walk through a patch of sunflowers.

 

 

 

Child Chairs, 1988, mixed media on paper mounted to board

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Gull and Windsor, combined mediums on paper, 1993. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  Private collection loan to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Other Voices, #1, 1995; charcoal and gouache on cardboard. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Cat Bates of Monhegan, oil on panel. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Loan from the Frye Museum to the Brandywine River Art Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

Monhegan Island’s incerator, a boy by the name of Cat Bates, is shown here in a composition with undertones from Dante’s Inferno.

 

 

 

 

Dead Cat Museum, Monhegan Island, 1999, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

The artist represents a boy on Monhegan Island, Kyle Murdock, who created this macabre museum for seasonal tourists.

 

 

 

Julia on the Swing, 1999, oil on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

 

 

Hill Girt Farm, 2000, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

This painting records a dream in which a scratching sound in a field leads the artist to a pumpkin which was carving itself from the inside.  All around were other pumpkins looking to him and rolling towards him.

 

 

 

 

The Faun, 1977-2002, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

The artist executed a series of celebrated portraits of the dancer, Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993).

In this portrait, Nureyev has become the Faun.

 

 

 

Bones of a Whale, 2006, oil on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Loan from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MI to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Black Spruce, 1994, oil on panel

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  On exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024. ?Current location

 

 

 

 

Wake, 2008, gesso and oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Spindrift, oil on canvas, 2010

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

The du Ponts of Delaware Study, 2010, oil on canvas

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

The Brandywine River Valley on the Pennsylvania/Delaware border, first and continuing stamping ground of members of the large clan of the du Ponts, is a demi-paradise.

 

 

 

 

Great White Shark, 2011; charcoal, oil and watercolour on toned paper board.

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

 

Berg, 2011, watercolour, gesso and enamel on joined rag boards  Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946.  Private collection loan to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Romps, 2013; enamel, gesso and watercolour on Strathmore paper

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

 

 

 

Consommé , 2013; enamel, gesso, gouache, and watercolour on archival cardboard

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a long-time friend of the artist, and until his death. 

This remembrance of a ghostly Warhol, with a dog on his lap pressing into him and looking up at him, has the look of a man far removed and gone into himself, and yet familiar and in a mundane posture.

 

 

 

My Mother and the Squall, 2016, acrylic, oil, gesso and watercolour on canvas. 

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. Private collection loan in 2024 to the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA

 

 

 

 

Spring, The Hanging of the Tree Rocks, 2017, acrylic and oil on wood panel

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

The artist’s wife, Phyllis Mills Wyeth (1940-2019), is in the foreground of this painting.  Every year she would try to tame blossoming branches by weighing them down with a stone. 

All other figures in this composition are part and parcel of the tree  and appear to represent the arrival of Spring.

 

 

 

Roots Revisited, 2019, acrylic, oil, and enamel on panel

James Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

The sycamore is a shallow-rooted tree.  Erosion reveals the extraordinary world of their root structure.

 

 

 

 

Snow Owl, 2020, oil, acrylic and watercolour; Fourteenth in a Suite of Untoward Occurrences on Monhegan Island, 2020. 

James Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

The crows are in a frenzy because the snow owl is a predator of crows and is known to kill and eat them.

 

 

 

 

Midsummer’s Night’s Dusk, 2022, oil, enamel, acrylic on Clayboard panel

Jamie Wyeth, American born 1946. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2024

 

The artist’s words:  “These are my cattle on the farm.  I love their sort of kabuki mask-like faces coming toward me.  They sort of terrified me.”