“Andrew Wyeth [...] offered mystery rather than certainty in his art. The power of the unseen at work in nature and in human life gives his art its power and unique presence,” historian and curator Susan Larsen once wrote.
In his 1995 work, Night Nurse, Wyeth creates a suspended drama with a stillness that borders on surreal. Like many of his other works, Night Nurse seems permeated with loss.
That loss began seeping into Wyeth’s work not long after his father Newell Convers Wyeth, died, having been struck by a passing train near his home in 1945.
A career illustrator, N.C. Wyeth was most famous for his work in adventure magazines and novels like Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe. He was a hero to Andrew, and his only art teacher.
As Wyeth’s work turned to the emotional, painting detailed scenes cast in uncertainty, the 20th century leaned further towards abstraction. Wyeth’s subjects and media – egg tempera – were unusual choices for a modern artist.
“The real reason tempera fascinated me was that I loved the quality of the colors,” Wyeth described, “the earth colors, the terra verde, the ochers, the reds, the Indian reds, and the blue-reds are superb. They aren’t artificial [... they are] something with which I build – like building in great layers the way earth was itself built.”
Wyeth’s worlds are recognizable yet mysterious, walking the line between the familiar and dreamlike. Always inspired by his immediate surroundings, Wyeth’s Night Nurse takes us to Maine as the artist is recovering from surgery. With a soft light in the distance, we see his nurse stepping out into the approaching fog. It is a powerful cinematic moment with a strangeness in how Wyeth has captured it.
“I think one’s art goes, as far and as deep as one’s love goes,” Wyeth explained, “Most people get to my work through the back door. They’re attracted by the realism, and they sense the emotion and abstraction – and eventually, I hope, they get their own powerful emotion.”
