A review by billyjepma
Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic by

informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

I own quite a few art books, but this is one of the few I’ve actually read cover-to-cover instead of flipping through to admire the art inside. Alongside 80+ gorgeously high-quality plates of Wyeth’s work—of a decent variety, too—are four in-depth, scholarly essays that look deeper into Wyeth’s work. It’s these essays, which occupy about of the book’s page length, that made this hit me as hard as it did. I felt like I was back in college again, which is a good thing, in this case, as the richly researched and argued essays gave me new windows into the why and how of Wyeth’s work on both a macro and micro level. 

I’ve always loved Wyeth’s work; his cinematic perspectives and imaginative, dreamy slant on realism have spoken to me since I first became aware of art as something more than a pretty picture. But after reading this, I feel like I can finally articulate where Wyeth’s style comes from and, more importantly, why it’s so compelling even beyond the obvious aesthetic appeals. I was genuinely sad to reach the end of the book because I didn’t want to stop learning about the stories behind and within these paintings. It set a high bar for the rest of my year’s reading, to say the least.