The assumptions about Jamie Wyeth might begin as soon as you hear the name.
After all, he’s a Wyeth—son of Andrew Wyeth, grandson of N.C. Wyeth, nephew of Carolyn Wyeth, heir to an artistic dynasty that spanned the twentieth century. Born in 1946 in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, James Browning Wyeth has crafted a decades-long career as a master of the realism and illustrative skill that were the hallmarks of the regionalist Brandywine School tradition he grew up with. He’s painted seascapes and farmscapes, capturing the expressive character of the animals and humans surrounding him.
It turns out, however, that Wyeth’s work isn’t so easy to pigeonhole. He did learn from the elder Wyeths, but still found his own way after leaving Chadds Ford, studying anatomy at a New York City morgue and hanging out at Andy Warhol’s Factory. And though the artist is certainly deserving of a career-spanning retrospective (which, in fact, he got at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts in 2014, showcasing his portraits of Warhol, JFK, Rudolf Nureyev, and other notables), that’s not what Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled is all about, says Paula Angermeier, head of communications for the Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA).
“It’s more about finding a through line of some of the themes that he returns to, and the general unsettled feeling you sometimes might get from looking at his art,” says Angermeier. “Of course, he stands on [the other Wyeths’] shoulders, but his evolution is really amazing. And it’s challenging, too, because the subject matter can be a little unsettling.”
The Strangers, Specters, and Disturbing Spaces of Jamie Wyeth
Consider, for example, Great White Shark, depicting a chihuahua perched on the edge of a pink sofa, glancing up apprehensively at a massive shark jawbone mounted overhead. Or Wyeth’s close-up still-life of a buzzsaw blade. Or Consommé, part of GCMA’s own collection, showing a wraithlike Warhol, frozen in hazy blue tones, awkwardly sipping soup.
“It’s almost explicit, the way he paints—the colors are so rich and vivid and vibrant,” Angermeier says. “It’s explosive. He’s generous with the paint.”
The exhibit, which originated at the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, features more than 50 such works drawn from museums and private collections throughout the country, gathered around the themes of Strangers and Specters, The Natural and Supernatural Worlds, and Haunted Places and Disturbing Spaces.
The artworks are steeped in what Brandywine Museum’s executive director Thomas Padon describes as Wyeth’s use of “ominous stillness, post-apocalyptic skies, frightening shifts in scale, and strange vantage points . . . to highlight the vulnerability of the human condition.”
An unflinching eye for “the messiness of life”
Artwork by Jamie Wyeth
Opening at GCMA on Dec. 4, Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog co-published by Rizzoli Electa and the Brandywine Museum. During the exhibition, GCMA also plans screenings of the feature-length documentary Jamie Wyeth and the Unflinching Eye.
After Greenville, the exhibition continues its tour at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Being on such a prestigious itinerary is a tribute to the deep Wyeth connection at GCMA—home of the largest and most complete collection of Andrew Wyeth watercolors owned by any public museum in the world—and the “incredibly discerning eye and taste” of museum director Thomas Styron, says Angermeier.
“It’s going to be really fascinating for Greenville to see how [Wyeth’s] style has evolved,” she adds. “It’s just so full of life—so much a part of the messiness of life. And you’re very much not just an observer, if you take a minute to look and figure out what’s going on.”
“Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled”
Greenville County Museum of Art, Heritage Green, 420 College St., Greenville
Dec. 4, 2024–Feb. 16, 2025, gcma.org/jamie-wyeth-unsettled
