Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life [Paperback]

Richard Meryman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 1998

"A revelation. No one will ever view Andrew Wyeth's apparently tranquil works the same way again after reading this vivid and astonishing portrait of the turbulent, driven man who paints them. Richard Meryman has written a wonderful book."
- Geoffrey C. Ward

At its most fundamental level, this stunning and unique biography describes a distinguished painter's enterprise of transmitting emotion onto a flat surface. It explores all the factors that have combined to create Andrew Wyeth -- his childhood in a hothouse of creativity; his hypersensitivity; his formidable wife; his identification with people marginalized and misunderstood -- all which have made him an American icon. In the process, his realist works in watercolor and tempera, including the famous "Christina's World," have gained him a special and secure niche in the history of American art.

The book is a portrait of obsession -- how single-mindedness has affected Wyeth's relationships and transformed his world into a realm of secrecy and fervid imagination. Those who read this book will never look at Wyeth's work as they did before. It reveals the artist's dark depths, as well as the ruthless, angry, child/man fantasist who paints the basic brutalities of existence -- death and madness --that vibrate eerily beneath his pictures' calm surfaces.

Richard Meryman's narrative is almost novelistic, with its larger-than-life characters and subplots: the tragedy of C.C. Wyeth; Betsy Wyeth's campaign for independence and individuality; the byzantine 15-year-long drama of the Helga paintings; the eccentric and creative Wyeth clan; and the idiosyncratic land and people of Maine and Pennsylvania.

Based on 30 years of research, frequent visits and countless conversations with the artist, his family, friends, admirers and critics, Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life is the only book about the man and the artist that gets behind his carefully guarded screen, tells the full story of his life and reveals his complex personality and the motivations for his paintings.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Andrew Wyeth's achievement is unmatched by other modern American realist painters: he produced canvasses that became American icons, deepening our sense of the possibilities of representational painting in an abstract age. This biography, produced by family friend Richard Meryman, who first wrote about Wyeth for Life magazine in 1964, takes in not only Andrew Wyeth's life but three generations of Wyeths: the peerless illustrator N. C. Wyeth, Andrew's father; Andrew Wyeth; and Jamie, Andrew's son and a successful realist painter in his own right. The "Secret Life" of the title refers in part, of course, to the "Helga" paintings, sketches, drawings, and portraits (many of them in the nude) of Wyeth's neighbor, later his companion and assistant, Helga Testorf. The revelation of the "Helga" series gave the married Wyeth's life, at almost 70, a final dose of drama. This new biography, besides delving deeply into Wyeth's personal life, includes long discussions of almost every Wyeth canvas. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"They're sticking pins in me!" Wyeth complained in 1986 after the press roasted his furtive and seminude "Helga" paintings. "I'm a has-been." Then 70, he had been an artistic icon since his 20s, and Christina's World, Wyeth's signature canvas, ranked with Whistler's portrait of his mother and Wood's American Gothic as national images. Meryman (Mank: The Wit, World, and Life of Herman Mankiewicz) bases his biography on interviews over many years with Wyeth, his family and his inner circle. Bare of printed sources and dependent on dialogue, the book strikingly evokes three generations of a talented, idiosyncratic family, its middle generation the progeny of a larger-than-life artist (N.C. Wyeth) insecure to the end about his worth. Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917) himself appears as a bundle of contradictions?modest and vain, outgoing and secretive, moved by anger as well as by love, a painter of pitiless pictures as well as postcard scenes. To his biographer, Wyeth's studies of rustic loneliness and decay accomplish what Edward Hopper achieved for 20th-century urban life. There are 75 b&w and 16 color photos here. Wyeth wanted a "tough book," writes Meryman, not one in which his works were "reverentially placed on the page surrounded by white borders"; he wanted "the excitement of pictures bled off the edges and carried across the gutter." The artist should be pleased with the result. Readers certainly will be.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060929219
• ISBN-13: 978-0060929213
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #628,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work worthy of its subject, however..., July 10, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life (Hardcover)

Mr. Richard Meryman has been writing about Mr. Andrew Wyeth for decades. With the possible exception of Family he is as well qualified as anyone to bring this deeply personal biography to readers and art lovers alike. His subject is a man who many would argue to be one of, if not the finest artist this Country is home to. When placed among his Father, his Sisters, and his Son, there is no other Family who has contributed to the art world for such a long period of time, in so prominent a manner, and with so high a level of excellence. The 21st Century marks the beginning of the third that the Wyeth name has maintained its place in the world of art and the hearts and imaginations of collectors. As a Family their History is already the material of both myth and legend.

My cautionary note in the title is important in direct relation to what you know about the man, who he paints, why, and what one of the most prevalent themes that mark his work are. I came to this book as a great admirer of his work, and I finished it with my love for his work intact, I do not have any of the same ideas I once did prior to reading the book.

"Christina's World" which is one of his singularly well known works, is also one of the least understood. The house and its influence on the artist did spawn it's own art book, but the events in that house could inspire several more. The same can be said of Christina Olson. Once I read about the work and what Mr. Wyeth had to say, I felt foolish in my ignorance, the fact that my misconceptions are shared to this day bring no comfort.

The book does not require any knowledge of Mr. Wyeth to be read and enjoyed. It certainly will add to the experience if you know of the model that is recognized simply as "Helga". Mr. Meryman introduces you to Helga Testorf, and intriguing women in her own right who continues to assist Mr. Wyeth to this day.

This book also brings to the reader Mrs. Betsy Wyeth, who is much more than the Wife of this man. She is a powerful partner, a shrewd businesswoman, and thanks to her efforts the body of his work will be documented.

Many of his well-known works are serene, even gentle; fishing nets drying in a sea breeze, or Mr. Wyeth's dog sleeping with his head upon a pillow like any person would do. These images are only a veneer to the story the stories and life experiences that caused Mr. Wyeth to document them. A given image is like one page from hundreds that really explain what the work is all about.

You most likely will view this great man's work differently after you finish the book, but different does not mean negatively or more positively, rather just not the way you started.

Mr. Meryman has written a brilliant biography that is erudite, readable, and a triumph in that the subject of this work is incredibly complex and enigmatic.

Brilliant subject, and a written work that pays tribute to the man, his Family, his work, and some of the people he paints, without fawning over him.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNFATHOMABLE SECRETS, August 24, 2002

By 

Paul Azzopardi (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life (Hardcover)

This book deals with Andrew Wyeth's relationships. Importantly, it often deals with Andrew Wyeth's relationships simulataneously. One relationship is analysed and the conclusions are superimposed onto another relationship to seek similarities or contrasts.

Describe the book as a series of overlapping X-rays of Andrew Wyeth's relationships, if you will, but do not expect Meryman to give you one final, big revelation.

Rather, Meryman goes for all the details and intricacies without at any time repeating himself or getting boring. The book is an exciting exploration of a complex and great artist. Meryman is all the time getting there, removing the layers of skin around Wyeth's core secrets, but never actually arriving at the heart, no matter how many accurate, sensitive, well-aimed X-rays he plies.

You sense, though, that the tension in his major relationships -- with his father NC Wyeth, his wife Betsy, his two sons, his sisters, his black friends, the people he painted most, namely, Helga, the Kuerners, the Olsons -- you sense that the tautness of feelings in each case, sharply controlled, come to bloom in his meticulously executed paintings which are austere yet quintessential life.

Paintings feeding on life. Life sublimated into art. And thus the reason, as Meryman shows, why Wyeth could not just paint anything, why before Wyeth embarked on a picture he had to be sure it had enough emotional engagement to see him through to the end, why his subjects became themselves the objects of his emotions, an intimate part of his life, like Helga.

The first picture I saw of Wyeth's was "Winter 1946", showing a boy seemingly lost in the fields. He did this the year after his father's death. Anyone who has lost a parent cannot help recognising the anguish in this picture.

To unleash such power, Wyeth had to find and assimilate it. Throughout his life Andrew Wyeth is seeking emotional momentum, whatever the cost.

It seems that, early in his life, pushed by NC's example and encouragement, Wyeth came to terms with the sacrifices which his art demanded. And yet it comes out clearly in Meryman's book that Wyeth could not come to terms with this driving force, with the brute rush, the ruthlessness which seeking emotional momentum implies.

This is a great book, sensitively written, comprehensive.

Holding it in your hand you can see that it is well-illustrated. It needs a proper index badly, though.

If you want to know Andrew Wyeth, go for it !

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful insight into a strange family & a complex man, December 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life (Paperback)

I read this book last year and I still think about the indepth research and wonderful language. The railroad crossing segment is worth the price of the book. The book will make you see Wyeth's work in a new light. Another book recommendation of same gendre, "Utopia Parkway".