Andrew Wyeth is less well known in the UK than in the States. But readers who know nothing about him will still be enriched by this large-format, meticulously produced book.
Here is the story of an artist's work with a single model over a period of years. Helga is not the artist's wife, nor is it relevant to ask what the relationship is between them, except as artist and model, for the pictures concentrate entirely on the visual. Nor is Helga a great beauty, just a reasonably attractive woman of mature years. What makes the series exceptional is Wyeth's intense, trance-like concentration on every aspect of her appearance. Wyeth is a realist, even a hyper-realist, but here we see the framework which underlies his ultra-detailed exhibition paintings.
There are tempera paintings that show every downy hair on the skin, luminous watercolours that explore the shapes of light and dark in sunlight, moody pencil studies, classic nudes, interiors and figure-in-the-landscape compositions. Helga is seen from every angle, in painful detail or as a flurry of eloquently sketched lines. It is this variation of treatments of the same subject which make the book so fascinating, especially to an artist.
The text forms only a small proportion of the book, and discusses the works rather than the painter; it is rather in awe of Wyeth but worth reading all the same.