[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 4, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING THE LIFE AND TALENTS OF MR. ANDREW N. WYETH

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                            HON. JOE SESTAK

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 4, 2009

   Mr. SESTAK. Madam Speaker, I rise to foremost honor the memory of an 
exceptional individual, Mr. Andrew N. Wyeth, America's most famous 
artist. Mr. Wyeth was truly the ``Painter of the People.''
  Andrew Newell Wyeth was born on July 12, 1917 in the Chadds Ford, PA 
home of his parents, world-renowned illustrator, N.C. Wyeth and his 
wife, Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. He died 91 years later in his home barely 
a mile away. Theirs was a creative family with roots that can trace 
back to Nicholas Wyeth who emigrated from England to Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. Sisters Henriette Wyeth Hurd and Carolyn Wyeth were also 
painters; sister Ann Wyeth McCoy became a composer; and brother 
Nathaniel was an engineer with numerous patents credited to him. 
Wyeth's own sons, Jamie and Nicholas, are a very well known artist and 
art dealer respectively.
  Mr. Wyeth produced a wealth of poignant and iconic paintings in a 
style and personality that spoke to the imagination and emotions of 
their viewers. Deeply personal in subject, his art focused on the 
landscapes and people of his rural surroundings that meant the most to 
him shedding light on the small communities in which he lived. He spent 
his lifetime walking and exploring the rural roads and fields of Chadds 
Ford, PA and the coastlines of Cushings, Maine. He painted these images 
repeatedly, each time expressing both his love of nature and his awe of 
its power.
  Mr. Wyeth continued to paint up until the months preceding his death. 
Though he preferred solitude in the countryside, Mr. Wyeth was honored 
numerous times throughout his life--both nationally and 
internationally. He was the first painter to ever receive the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in 1970, the first living 
artist to have an exhibition at the White House. In 1977, he was the 
second American artist ever elected to the French, Academie des Beaux-
Arts and became the first living American artist elected to Britain's 
Royal Academy in 1980. On November 9, 1988, Wyeth received the 
Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the 
United States legislature. Most recently, he was presented with the 
National Medal of Arts in 2007.
  Admirers were drawn to his iconic works created with extraordinary 
perception, not just for their obvious beauty but also because they 
contained strong emotional currents and symbolic subjects coupled with 
an underlying abstraction. A 2006 retrospective of his works that ran 
for almost 16 weeks at the Philadelphia Museum of Art drew the highest-
ever attendance at the museum for a living artist. Though we never met, 
I am thankful to Mr. Wyeth for sharing his deeply personal works with 
us and for highlighting a beautiful town in the 7th Congressional 
District. I am certain that his legacy will be preserved as one of 
America's most prolific artists through a timeless collection which 
will always evoke a sense of nostalgia for and connection with our 
common past.
  Madam Speaker, I ask that this chamber pause to remember Andrew N. 
Wyeth, and to thank his wife, Betsy, and sons, Jamie and Nicholas, for 
sharing their father and his extraordinary talent with us.

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