Virtual Art Tour

Jamie Wyeth, American, born 1946

Untitled

Grandson of historical illustrator and muralist N.C. Wyeth, son of landscape and portrait artist Andrew Wyeth, nephew of New Mexican painter Henriette Wyeth Hurd, James Browning Wyeth was born July 6, 1946 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Jamie was privately tutored at home near the Brandywine River.

From 1966 to 1971, Jamie served in the U.S. Air Corps Reserve, managing to serve both the military and his own art. For a battalion ball he created an enormous mural of Adam and Eve evicted from Eden, was commissioned to paint the portrait of Delaware's Governor Terry and a posthumous portrait of the late John F. Kennedy, which now hangs in Boston's Kennedy Library.

Wyeth was also to witness and record several space launches, their preparations and personnel. These pieces now hang in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

In 1974, he was permitted (no photographers were allowed) to sketch the U.S. Supreme Court impeachment proceedings of a head of state, following Watergate. Although he has created these political pieces in the public eye, Wyeth maintains a personal privacy first in his home in Monhegan, Maine, where he paints nature, and at his Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania farm.

His work is generally divided into several categories: portraits of famous or ordinary people, paintings of scenes from everyday life, works with a sense of humor, and landscapes and seascapes. During the inauguration, Wyeth was the only artist in attendance who was sketching.