American Fine Art Editions: Andrew Wyeth - AW034. Wyeth is America’s painter and an internationally renowned artist. Wyeth original paintings, drawings, prints, and more.

REF#AW034

American Fine Art Editions: Andrew Wyeth - AW034
Paintings and Prints available
For more information contact your International Art Consultant
at 800-466-8276 for price and availability.

End of Olsons

This work depicting the Olson’s house is the culmination of feeling from Andrew Wyeth and his time spent with the Olson family. This breathtaking work of art was painted by Wyeth at a difficult time: after the deaths of both Christina and Alvaro, while the house was being emptied and prepared for sale. Christina and Alvaro had died within a month of each other during the winter of 1967-68 and Wyeth painted his last works at the Olson house during the next two summers. This work signifies the end of Wyeth’s relationship with the Olson family and reflects Wyeth’s intense feeling through every brushstroke and dramatic shadowing. Wyeth had an intimately personal and artistic relationship with Christina and the Olson family for over twenty years. Wyeth was deeply affected by the passing of his models and friends. His attachment is evident in the expressionistic details of Wyeth’s artwork.

The scene depicted is the view from the window of the attic spare room that Wyeth had used as a studio, which looks out over the kitchen and shed roofs to the cove beyond. The viewer is in the open air, like a bird swooping low over the roof of the Olson’s house. By eliminating the use of the window as a framing device, Wyeth also dispenses with any barrier between the viewer and the outside, heightening the immediacy with which the viewer experiences the sensory qualities of the scene: the warmth of the light striking the chimney’s faded brick; the delicate tracery of the wood grain in the dry, splintery shingles; and the smells of seaweed, salt water and pine woods. Perched on the ridgepole and flying in a graceful arc over the cover, the swallows seem to embody the fleeting pleasures of summer, or indeed, of life.

Wyeth rejects the critics and historians classification of him as a Realist preferring instead to identify his art as Expressionistic. Realism is such a limiting term with regard to Wyeth and cannot contain what astonishing mastery we see through Andrew Wyeth’s art. Wyeth magically imbues each landscape with a sense of history, nostalgia, and Americana. His paintings are not just realistic; they are full of darkness, emotion, light, and expression. Each with a deeper meaning that is evident only upon further reflection of his artwork.

Contact your International Art Consultant today to begin your Wyeth collection and to learn more about his artworks of the Olson family. Our consultants are available Monday through Saturday from 9am to 9pm and Sunday by appointment, you may reach us at (800) 466-8276 or (480) 990-1200.