Man Reading, Monhegan 1974

Jamie Wyeth made this watercolor of a house in Monhegan, maybe on site, as it feels so immediate. I love how the painting is all about the materiality of the place. The textures in the rock and the building are built up with delicate layers. You can almost feel the wind coming off the ocean. Look how Wyeth creates subtle colour shifts, like in the off-white roof, with these tiny, precise marks. The window is a dark rectangle, with a tiny splash of cobalt. Wyeth’s work always makes me think of Edward Hopper, both of them have a knack for distilling a specific atmosphere and light. Of course, Wyeth’s dad, Andrew, was famous for this too! But, where Andrew was meticulous, Jamie is looser. For me, a painting is never really "finished," but rather, a record of an ongoing process. It's the feeling of “finding” something, like Wyeth does here.