Andrew Wyeth, American Realist Artist, Passes Away at 91

Andrew Wyeth was born on July 12, 1917, the youngest of the five children of N. C. and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth.

While popular with the public, Wyeth never achieved critical acclaim. However, Andrew Wyeth has also been popular with the White House. In 1963 he was the first artist to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Richard Nixon held an exhibition of Wyeth's paintings and dinner in his honor in 1970.

In 1990, Andrew Wyeth was the first artist to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. President George H.W. Bush, presenting the award, noted that Mr. Wyeth's work "caught the heart of America."

And in 2007, Andrew Wyeth received the National Medal of Arts from George W. Bush (pictured).

Despite his long career, some of the most famous, or perhaps, controversial artwork of his career were the so-called "Helga Pictures," a series of 247 studies of Wyeth's neighbor, the Prussian-born Helga Testorf. Many of these were nudes.

Painted over the period 1971–1985, the series was done without the knowledge of either Wyeth's wife or John Testorf, Helga's husband.

Andrew Wyeth is survived by his wife and son Jamie (also a painter), another son, Nicholas, an art dealer, and a granddaughter.