Two icons of American art have come together once more. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has opened two new exhibits – Warhol’s Nature, on view through October 5, and Jamie Wyeth, on view July 25 through October 5, 2015. Admission is $8 for a combined ticket from July 25 – October 5 and as always, temporary exhibitions are free for museum members and youth ages 18 and under.

The artists are both icons in their genres and also close friends. Both focused on subjects ranging from portraits to the outdoors with each artist interpreting the world his own way.

“Presenting these exhibitions concurrently provides viewers the chance to experience art by two contemporaries with distinct artistic styles and different worldviews. The exhibitions explore the life and career of Warhol and Wyeth, and uncover a fascinating and lesser-known friendship between the artists,” says Rod Bigelow, Crystal Bridges Executive Director.

Wyeth visited Crystal Bridges and held an artist lecture on July 24. He discussed his relationship with Warhol and reflected upon his career from his first commission “Portrait of Helen Tarssig” to his new works such as the screen door series, which includes a piece on Warhol. Wyeth talked about the reaction to his famous portrait of John F. Kennedy that appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine. Robert Kennedy hated the piece claiming that it reminded him of his brother during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Public opinion was also divided at the time, although the portrait has now become a universally lauded depiction of President Kennedy. “The lesson is to wait a while,” Wyeth joked.

Many of Wyeth’s work tend to have repetitive subjects and themes. “They’re obsessions at the time, but now I’m like ‘what the hell’?” he said. “When I get obsessed with something or someone, I want to accurately reproduce it. I measure it a lot. This is part of the process really.”

One subject that he measured thoroughly was Warhol. In November, 1975, Wyeth asked the famous pop artist, whom he’d met some years earlier, if he could paint his portrait. “Well, you do one of me and I’ll do one of you,” the Pop icon replied; and in February, 1976, Wyeth arrived at Warhol’s New York studio known as The Factory for three months of intense collaboration. The portraits each made of the other—some 36 drawings, prints, and paintings— appeared in a joint exhibition at the Coe Kerr Gallery in June, 1976. The two artists became close friends, often spending weekends together at Wyeth’s family home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and remained close until Warhol’s death in 1987.

“He was like a figure from Halloween,” Wyeth said of obsession with Warhol. “I was totally intrigued.”

His obsession continues to this day has one of his most recent works in the show, the first in his screen door series, is of Warhol. “I have been fascinated with screen doors for a while so I thought why not use a real one? I measured Andy so much that I put him behind it. It creeped me out,” he said of the life size work, which is on display at Crystal Bridges.

Warhol’s Nature: July 4 – October 5, 2015

Warhol’s Nature was organized by Crystal Bridges Curator Chad Alligood and drawn primarily from the extensive collections of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Visitors will have the opportunity to view 87 paintings, prints, photographs, and video, as well as documents and personal objects from Warhol’s personal collection. Through these objects, exhibited together for the first and only time, the artist’s complex relationship to nature emerges. Although well known for his responsiveness to popular culture and advertising, Warhol simultaneously explored the natural world, depicting landscapes, flora, and fauna in innovative and surprising ways.
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“Warhol’s engagement with nature is an important area of study and largely overlooked. We’re excited to present the untold story, uncovering layers of Pop to reveal an artist deeply interested in cultivating and preserving the nature outside and the nature within us all,” says Crystal Bridges Curator, Chad Alligood.

Well-known artworks include Warhol’s Self-Portrait in his infamous fright wig overlaid with camouflage; the iconic and pivotal Flowers series of the 1960s; Silver Clouds, an interactive installation; and 10 images from the Endangered Species series. In addition to the works and archival elements, Warhol-inspired programs and resources are available to provide visitors a richer and more meaningful experience. A Spotify playlist offers an exhibition soundtrack with songs by the Velvet Underground and a mix of culturally relevant tunes spanning the 1960s and ‘70s. Listen HERE, (a free Spotify account is required). On Friday, August 14, the museum celebrates a full night of Andy Warhol with a free, pre-show conversation about  the artist as a filmmaker and manager of The Velvet Underground, followed by a multi-media concert on Walker Landing, 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Between the events , visitors can enjoy a Warhol-themed tasting menu and live music in the museum restaurant, Eleven.

For both Warhol’s Nature and Jamie Wyeth, a Selfie Booth will be available for visitors to fashion their image with the flash of Warhol or the mystery of Wyeth by recreating works in the exhibitions. For more information and a full list of programs, visit Warhol’s Nature. Sponsored by ConAgra Foods, Blakeman’s Fine Jewelry, and Stout Executive Search.

Jamie Wyeth: July 25 through October 5, 2015

Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the exhibition debuts the first major retrospective of this American artist, with 90 works on view. Jamie Wyeth examines six decades of the artist’s career and charts the evolution of his creative process from his earliest childhood drawings through recurring themes inspired by the people, places and objects that populate his world. The exhibition displays paintings, works on paper, illustrations and objects in a range of “combined mediums”—Wyeth’s preferred term for the distinctive technique he brings to many of his compositions.

Alligood says, “This body of work provides an intimate glimpse into the artist’s life and offers new insight into contemporary realism.” He adds, “Wyeth will be considered amongst the painters he emulated and admired, such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Edward Hopper, all of whom can be found in the Crystal Bridges collection.”

Wyeth – the third generation in a family of artists including his grandfather, Newell Convers “N.C.” Wyeth (1882–1945); his father, Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009); and his aunt, Carolyn Wyeth (1909–1994) – blazed his own unique path. He was encouraged to pursue art at a young age, but never attended art school. Instead, he left school at the age of 11 and received instruction at home from his aunt, a surrealist painter, with critical guidance from his father. Later, Wyeth studied anatomy by sketching cadavers in a New York City morgue, and worked with Warhol in The Factory. His strain of realism has consequently evolved in directions that are significantly different from that of his grandfather and father.

Wyeth’s Portrait of Shorty (1963), painted when he was 17, reflects the culmination of his early years as an apprentice within his own family circle, while his formative years during the 1960s and ’70s produced paintings such as his Portrait of John F. Kennedy (1967). While working in New York City, Wyeth exchanged portraits with Andy Warhol at his famed Factory in 1976, bringing all his tools and skills to bear on Warhol’s every pore, blemish, and strand of his carefully styled wig in Portrait of Andy Warhol (1976). In contrast to New York City and the Factory, the Brandywine River Valley inspired Wyeth to paint the barns, objects, and landscapes of the picturesque agrarian region where he was born. Works focusing on the area surrounding his childhood home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and, later, on the Wyeths’ farm in Wilmington, Delaware, include early landscapes produced when the artist was 13 years old, and a series of carriage scenes depicting his wife––who suffered an automobile accident at the age of 21 that left her paralyzed.

VISIT: CRYSTALBRIDGES.ORG

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