The Andrew Wyeth Movie

Here's the extended trailer for the new documentary film about Andrew Wyeth. It was originally planned for a 2012 release - but it's now going to be next month!


WYETH - Extended Trailer from FreshFly on Vimeo.


This is what I can find out:

WYETH is a documentary film telling the story of one of America’s most popular, but least understood, artists. While his exhibitions routinely broke attendance records, art world critics continually assaulted his work. Through unprecedented access to Wyeth family members, archival materials, and his work, WYETH presents the most complete portrait of the artist ever - bearing witness to a legacy just at the moment it is evolving.

The film:

• tells the story of one of America’s most popular, but least understood, artists
• examines the mastery of technique in Wyeth's work (drawings, watercolors, tempera, drybrush)
• reviews the sources of the emotional undercurrents and exposes the influences on his creativity.
• includes hundreds of Wyeth's paintings in the film - you can see a complete list of all the artwork here

It has its own website https://www.andrewwyethmovie.com/ and it also has the support of the Andrew Wyeth Office and Wyeth knew it was planned before he died.

This is the review of the film by Hollywood Reporter - which is very complimentary....

this is an expertly made, exhaustively researched documentary with a suitably painterly feel in its widescreen visuals. There is compositional beauty in cinematographer Phil Bradshaw's textured images, but also the harshness and darkness that were quintessential elements of Wyeth's art. Given the ongoing rediscovery and deeper appreciation of his work that has continued since his death in 2009, the film should find a receptive audience at festivals and art forums.

Image of Wyeth's Studio, © Phil Bradshaw, FreshFly

Another perspective on his studio -  © Phil Bradshaw, FreshFly

The Andrew Wyeth Prints website - a site authorised by the family to deal in prints of his paintings - comments as follows

The Andrew Wyeth MovieCurrently titled “Wyeth”, the movie line was written in 2008 and personally approved by Andrew Wyeth himself, who cited a desire for the screenwriter “not to take it easy on him at all.” The project not only has Andrew’s personal blessing, but also the approval of the Wyeth family, who have confirmed that the events in the screenplay are based on facts and actual events. Unfortunately, ninety-five year-old Andrew passed away in late 2009, before the film could be completed.

Andrew Wyeth, © Christian C. Sanderson

This is how you can see it

• PHILADELPHIA PREMIERE - WYETH will screen at the Kimmel Center on September 5, 2018. Click here for tickets.
• WYETH will be broadcast during PBS' American Masters on September 7, 2018. Check your local listings.
• WYETH is available for pre-order on DVD at Amazon and ShopPBS.

No news yet of how it can be seen outside the USA. 

I do hope it's going to Netflix!

In plain sight - and invisible

The title of this post is a quote from the Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain's Hidden Art History programme on BBC4 last night - which you can watch on iPlayer.

Very much recommended viewing for every artist, whatever your ethnicity, for an explanation of just how difficult it is to get your artwork seen when the art establishment ignores you - and even denies your nationality.

However it was interesting to hear that there is a lot more work by black artists in British Collections than had been expected - but that it tends to be in the collection and NOT on show.

I'm ashamed to say an awful lot of what I heard about was new to me. So I thought I'd create a set of links to the websites and more information about:

• some of the artists who are mentioned in the programme 
• notable events / exhibitions highlighted by the programme
• some of the more famous black artists who latterly are known for their art first and their ethnicity second.

Anybody who cares to suggest 

• other websites relevant to the programme or theme is welcome to do so 
• other artists who deserve to be added to the list

please leave a comment with the information or name.

Black Artists in the Programme

It became very clear that black art in this context actually means art by anybody who doesn't fit in terms of a white western European origin.

Older artists tend to be born elsewhere and come to Britain and younger artists are typically born here as the second or third generation family members of the original migrants

• Rasheed Araeen (1935 - present) - a London-based conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, writer, and curator. Arrived from Pakistan in 1964.
• works by Rasheed Araeen in the Tate Collection

Araeen has been among the first cultural practitioners to voice since the early 1970s the need of artists of African, Latin American and Asian origins to be represented in British cultural institutions.

• Frank Bowling OBE (1936 - present) Member of the RA. A a leading Colour Field painter  in the 1970s.
• In conversation with Frank Bowling RA

• Sonia Boyce MBE RA (1962 - present) currently Professor of Fine Arts at Middlesex University, London and Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London and co-ordinator of the exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery

Sonia and her team have spent the past three years scouring public art archives to find out just how many works of art by artists of African and Asian descent the nation really owns. They have found nearly 2,000, but many of these pieces have rarely, if ever, been displayed before BBC

• Lubaina Himid MBE (1954 - present) - first British black artist to win the Turner Prize (in 2017). British contemporary artist and curator; Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. Named named Artist of the Year 2017 by international art journal Apollo Magazine.

Himid was appointed MBE in June 2010 for "services to black women's art", and won the Turner Prize in 2017. Tate bio

Turner Prize 2017 - Lubaina Himid | Tate