vividreports: Another visit to the Farnsworth

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Another visit to the Farnsworth

I wanted to see Phil McKean during this visit and this morning we met him at the Farnsworth Museum - which we have done several times before. This is great - we love the Farnsworth - and we enjoyed our time there today. The highlight of today's visit was two rooms devoted to Betsy Wyeth - wife of Andrew Wyeth. Betsy Wyeth was a woman tres formidable. She recently died at age 98. She was a frequent model for Andrew, often served as his muse and critic, and devoted herself to all the artists of the Wyeth family (N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth), serving as a family archivist, historian, documentarian, writing books, producing films, etc. In addition she founded several organizations devoted to their art. One could go on. Since I get fatigued fairly quickly standing and looking at art, I spent part of the time there sitting in the art library, which is a marvelous place. I usually randomly select a book off the shelf and peruse it; today it was a book about Thomas Hart Benton. Benton is like the Wyeths in the sense that he too is associated with a region - the Midwest; (the Wyeths of course are strongly associated with Maine). But maybe that's where the aimilarities end. Benton is a "modernist" and a "structuralist," (I think), whatever those terms might mean. But all you have to do is put an Andrew Wyeth watercolor next to a Benton mural and you can see the contrast. I like them both. Benton was a highly controversial figure in his own time and still is today, I guess. Also, at a certain point, he was linked with Grant Wood (both "midwestern"), who was from my hometown of Anamosa, Iowa, and whom I have long admired. So anyway - a fun morning. We'll see Phil again later this afternoon at his place. Tonight is Kierkegaard. Wow - what a day!