Andrew Wyeth at Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth

by William L. Coleman, Karen Baumgartner (contributor), James Welling (contributor)

160 pages, Hardcover

Published February 11, 2025

Reviews

[Andrea Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the Brandywine Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, PA, and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, in association with the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, this book consists of four remarkable essays. The first, “Nothing Simple: Unpacking the Kuerner Myth” examines the influence of Quaker thought on Wyeth’s desire for Simplicity. The second looks at the darkness of the Kuerner Farm in Wyeth’s oeuvre. “Wyeth’s Vibe” explores a photographer’s appreciation of Wyeth’s eye, while the last looks at the people of the farm whom Wyeth painted repeatedly. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to the marvelous color plates of works in various media showing the farm, its people, and its environs. As William L. Coleman points out: “The widespread love of Wyeth’s Kuerner works has spawned a cottage industry of attempts to explain the fascination with and associations of the place. No book on Wyeth would be complete without some attention to the problem of Kuerners, and a sizable edifice of mythology has grown up around it as a result.” … absolutely stellar …

[Tom Mockensturm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the companion coffee table book to the exhibit that my wife and I had the opportunity to visit at at the Reynolda house in Winston-Salem. The collection and stories behind the paintings are rivetting. This contains all of the plates from the exhibit along with photographs of the artist, the farm, and the German family he befriended, studied, and painted. The copies of the paintings are terrific!