Victoria Wyeth, granddaughter of the famous American painter Andrew Wyeth, visits Christ the King Parish School to talk about her grandfather and his work. She was close with the painter and he shared many stories behind how he made his paintings wih her. (Maria Pouchnikova)
How did artist Andrew Wyeth’s granddaughter wind up in a darkened room with hundreds of Northeast schoolchildren last week? Well, she needed a plumber.
“Are you an artist?” plumber Kevin Hughes asked Victoria Wyeth as he looked at the paintings hanging in her Center City apartment. She told him those were her grandfather’s works. Hughes recognized the artist, and Wyeth told him she would be happy to tell his daughter, Victoria, and her classmates about her grandfather.
On March 2, the nonpainting Wyeth provided the pupils of Christ the King parish school in Morrell Park with a very personal portrait of one of the 20th-century’s greatest artists.
She made Andrew Wyeth real the way only someone who knew him could, and the kids loved it. They got a kick out of a tale about two women who didn’t like a self-portrait of Wyeth in which he portrayed himself as a skeleton. One woman said she didn’t like the painting, and a man standing behind the women spoke up and said he believed the artist was dead. That was fine with one of the women, who said she never liked him. The man standing behind the women was Andrew Wyeth, his granddaughter said. He loved that story, she added.
Victoria Wyeth showed the pupils slides and details of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and told them the philosophy of his art: “Art has no rules,” and “I paint my life.”
His paintings are filled with his friends and family as well as the scenes that surrounded him. He painted a self-portrait of his own legs after watching himself in a mirror. The artist once flew in a plane to watch a turkey vulture in flight so he could accurately paint it.
Victoria Wyeth, a psychologist, frequently lectures on the art of the Wyeth family. Her visit to Christ the King was her first visit to a Northeast Philadelphia school.
She is Andrew Wyeth’s only grandchild. Her great-grandfather was the illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Her mother, Jane, is an art adviser who was trained as an art historian. Her father, Nicholas, is an art dealer. She is the niece of the contemporary realist Jamie Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth, born in 1917, died in 2009. ••
For information, visit www.victoriawyeth.com.
Storytime: Victoria Wyeth shared stories of her late grandfather, Andrew Wyeth, with students at Christ the King parish school in Morrell Park on March 2. Artist Andrew Wyeth passed away in 2009. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTO
