Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth was an American painter known for spare, haunting scenes of rural life. Born in Pennsylvania in 1917, he was trained by his father, a famous illustrator, and spent his career painting the fields, farmhouses, and people of two places he knew intimately, rural Pennsylvania and coastal Maine. He worked mainly in watercolor and egg tempera, a demanding old technique that gave his work a dry, precise finish.

His most famous painting, Christina's World, shows a woman lying in a vast field, gazing toward a distant farmhouse, an image full of longing and mystery. He also created a large, private series of paintings of a neighbor named Helga. Some critics found his realism old-fashioned, but his quiet, emotionally charged scenes struck a deep chord with the public, making him one of the best known American artists of his century.