DESCRIPTION
ANALYSIS
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
Artists’ Stories
Fifth Grade
Lesson 5
Andrew Wyeth
Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students will be able to,
1) Tell two interesting facts about Wyeth’s life that impacted his artmaking
2) Discuss the emotional component of Wyeth’s regional style.
3) Compare and contrast colonial American art with Wyeth’s work to determine
the establishment of an American painting tradition.
Key Questions:
What do the different aspects of the same room call your attention to?
Do the different images convey different emotions?
What do you think is the story behind this painting?
Which story is most convincing and why? Is there evidence in the painting
that suggests that story?
What techniques did Wyeth use to create the mystery of this painting?
Why doesn’t he paint Christina in a more straightforward way?
Do you think this is the same farmhouse or a different one?
How does Wyeth change the mood and emotional feeling of the paintings
even though they all include similar elements of the same farmhouse?
What is different about these two images?
How are the figures portrayed?
In comparing Christina’ World with this early portrait, how would you describe
the emerging American tradition in painting?
Because Wyeth never tired of the mysteries and new things he could paint on
and around the Olson farm, why do you think artists notice things, perhaps
things right under our own noses, which many other people don’t?
Andrew Wyeth
 Born 1917, still living today
 Was often ill as a child, so his parents schooled him from home.
 Began using watercolors as a teen and had his first solo show
when he was only 20 years old.
 A close friend who was crippled, Christina Olson, became the
subject of one of his best-known paintings, Christina’s World.
Christina’s World,
1948
Lesson Cycle
Focus: (5 min.) Either have a student volunteer take 5 polaroids of different areas of
the classroom or use a digital camera to take 5 different angles of the same
classroom and include those images in the powerpoint. Ask students to look
at how different the images are. What do the different aspects of the same
room call your attention to? Do the different images convey different
emotions?
Tell students that today they will be looking at another Regionalist artist (have
students tell you about Grant Wood’s Regionalism from the previous lesson),
but this artist did not paint his own backyard because of a rejection of European
trends in art, but instead he chose local subject matter because he found it so
compelling and interesting. He has said “I have to find a reason for painting a
thing,” and so there is a story behind every one of his paintings. He created
painted mysteries in his own backyard.
Guide the Group: (15 min.) Have students look at Christina’s World, Wyeth’s most
famous painting. Ask for a few volunteers to make up the story that they think
goes with this painting: What do you think is the story behind this painting? (If a
precocious 5th grader knows who Christina is and relates her story, just accept
that as one of the versions and solicit 2 or 3 more). After you hear 2 or 3, ask
students: Which story is most convincing and why? Is there evidence in the
painting that suggests that story?
Tell students about Christina Olson, Wyeth’s neighbor, and the fact that his art
studio was in her family’s farmhouse. Christina was partially crippled by
paralysis when she was a baby. She got around by crawling or moving in a
chair. Wyeth found her a remarkable woman and used her as the subject of
numerous paintings. This picture grew out of an incident when Wyeth saw
Christina, out to pick berries, looking back across a field towards her house.
This area was the entire world to Christina, as she had great trouble getting
around because of her crippled state.
What techniques did Wyeth use to create the mystery of this painting? Why
doesn’t he paint Christina in a more straightforward way?
Independent Practice: (15 min) Show students a series of paintings that all have
aspects of the farmhouse in them, but all are a little different. Ask students: Do
you think this is the same farmhouse or a different one? How does Wyeth
change the mood and emotional feeling of the paintings even though they all
include similar elements of the same farmhouse?
Fifth Grade
Lesson 5, page 2
Think back to the images of the classroom at the beginning of the lesson. Have
students use a picture frame to frame an aspect of the classroom that they think
would tell an interesting story. Discuss with students what angle of the
classroom they have chosen to frame to tell their interesting story.
Art Review: (10 min.) Show students Christina’s World and Copley’s Portrait of Paul
Revere. Ask students: What is different about these two images? How are the
figures portrayed? Remember the colonial portrait artists were imitating the
European portraiture tradition because America was a young country with no
artistic tradition of its own. In comparing Christina’ World with this early portrait,
how would you describe the emerging American tradition in painting? (sample
answers may include: the tradition is more personal and emotional; there are
more open interpretations possible of Wyeth’s works.)
Closure: (5 min.)
Ask the EVALUATION QUESTION: Because Wyeth never tired
of the mysteries and new things he could paint on and around the Olson farm,
why do you think artists notice things, perhaps things right under our own noses,
which many other people don’t?
Student responses could include that artists pay more attention to detail, or that
they are interested in seeing the world in ways that other people don’t, so they
make a point of depicting the world differently.
Fifth Grade
Lesson 5, page 3
Lesson Resources
Andrew Wyeth Time Line
July 12, 1917 Andrew Wyeth’s birthday.
1937 Held his first one-man show of watercolors painted around the family's
summer home at Port Clyde, Maine.
1939 Wyeth marries Betsey James when he is 22 years old.
1944 Paints Turkey Pond.
1951 His first solo museum exhibition was presented in 1951 at the Farnsworth Art Museum.
1979 Paints Braids.
1948 Paints Christina’s World.
1965 Paints In the Studio.
Present Andrew Wyeth is still alive today.
Fifth Grade
Lesson 5, page 4
Andrew Wyeth was born July 12, 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He was the
youngest of five children. Andrew was a sickly child and so his mother and father
made the decision to pull him out of school after he contracted whooping cough. His
parents home-schooled him in every subject including art education.
Andrew had a vivid memory and fantastic imagination that led to a great fascination
for art. His father recognized an obvious raw talent that had to be nurtured. While his
father was teaching him the basics of traditional academic drawing, Andrew began
painting watercolor studies of the rocky coast and the sea in Port Clyde Maine.
He worked primarily in watercolors and egg tempera and often used shades of
brown and gray. He held his first one-man show of watercolors painted around the
family's summer home at Port Clyde, Maine in 1937. It was a great success that
would lead to plenty more.
He married at the age of twenty-two to a local girl named Betsey James and had two
boys, Nicholas who became an art dealer, and James who became the third
generation artist in his family. Betsey introduced Andrew to her longtime friend,
Christina Olson, who was crippled. Andrew painted her outside her home in one of
his best-known paintings, Christina’s World in 1948. Christina remained friends with
Andrew and Betsey until her death in 1968.
He was featured on the cover of American Artist as well as many other famous
magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post that displayed his painting "The
Hunter." His first solo museum exhibition was presented in 1951 at the Farnsworth
Art Museum. Since then he has seen many more successes and is considered one
of the most "collectable" living artist's of our time.
"With watercolor, you can pick up the atmosphere, the temperature, the sound of
snow shifting through the trees or over the ice of a small pond or against a
windowpane. Watercolor perfectly expresses the free side of my nature." - Andrew
Wyeth
Images
Christina’s World (1948)
http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site_reg.htm
The Master Bedroom, (??)
http://www.awyethgallery.com/andrew/master.html
Braids (1979)
http://www.norton.org/exhibit/archive/wyeth/wyeth.htm
Up in the Studio (1965)
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/w/p-wyeth5.htm
Turkey Pond (1944)
Biography
http://www.andrew-wyeth-prints.com/biography.html
http://farnsworthmuseum.org/wyeth/andrew.html
Fifth Grade
Lesson 5, page 5