I grew up with the Wyeth family art. N.C. in my books, Andrew's dreamlike moody paintings and portraits by Jamie. Tonight I felt privileged to actually meet Jamie at his opening in Salt Lake Art Center of his paintings of the Seven Deadly Sins. He was charming and eloquent and very funny. I was able to buy the catalog and an 8 minute short movie of him painting Inferno. He willingly personally autographed my catalog. It was a well spent evening and one I won't forget.
The informal discussion was puntuated by interesting questions from the standing room only audience. I was impressed with the thoughtful content of his artwork and the comments of his and the audience. Of course there is always one...while waiting for an autograph a man came up to Jamie and asked him to autograph his catalog to Lesly his wife and then proceeded to expect Wyeth to write a quote this man was reciting! Wyeth politely refused and wrote no sentiment. He then turned his attention to a polite young man and then me the last. He remembered that I had asked a question about his materials and wrote that in his sentiment. The weird man left and didn't pursue his weird request.
The show was based on the seven deadly sins that were written about in Dantes' Inferno and other writers and he was influenced by paintings and prints by Bosch, Breugal and others. He used seagulls to illustrate the sins and the line quality and expressive paint handling really gave it emotion. He painted with a special watercolor with a honey base and it looks like oil. He also used enamel paint for flames, guoache and charcoal. All on handmade paper and the large Inferno on corrugated cardboard! He then placed the finished paintings on parts of a painting he had done of flames as a border. Then the frames were black and the titles were on the frames. The paper was made by Twin Rocker. Amazing, moving and not cliche at all. A must see show.
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