Andrew Wyeth @ the Farnsworth Museum

Photograph by Dale DiMauro

Earlier this week, my wife and I visited the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, which includes the Wyeth Center. It is quite an achievement to have a museum for your family's paintings but that in essence, is what the Wyeth Center is. Don't get the wrong impression because the three generations of Wyeth's from N.C., to Andrew, and to Jamie have created a lot of worthy paintings.

Since this is the year Andrew Wyeth would have turned one hundred, there is a gallery dedicated to his watercolors. One of the display panels mentions that he painted 100-150 watercolors a year, which through the years would total thousands of paintings. I do not know of any American artist with that level of productivity.

This watercolor study by Andrew Wyeth, called Drumlins was done in 1974. It is part of another exhibition in the museum featuring some of his drawings, which alone, are quite remarkable in the range of subject matter and scale of the work.

After we left the museum I came away thinking this was the best exhibition of the artist's work I have ever seen.