Andrew Wyeth, one of the 20th Century’s most important American painters, died today at age 91. His representational paintings went against the mainstream of modernism and postmodernism that so dominated the landscape of the art world of his lifetime. Personally, the melancholy beauty of his paintings always stirred me as extraordinarily familiar. Wyeth did not dress up his scenes but painted them in a way that both tugs at you and makes you reflect on the state of reality. Some of my favorites:

 

Winter 1946

Christina’s World (1948)

Trodden Weed (1951)

Master Bedroom 1965

The Carry (2003)

Stop (2008)