Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures

From 1971 to 1985, Andrew Wyeth undertook a long, intensive study of one model, Helga Testorf. Testorf was one of the artist’s neighbors in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and for some 14 years she served as Wyeth’s private project. The approximately 240 works that resulted from their friendship were investigatory, diverse, and extraordinarily intimate. Wyeth conducted his series of drawings and paintings in almost total secrecy, revealing to no one the existence of the series, the identity of the model, or the extent of the project. Testorf provided a means for Wyeth to explore the complexity of the human figure. She was presented in almost every human aspect: clothed, nude, indoors, outdoors, in recognizable settings and against neutral backgrounds. With the Helga series, Wyeth tested the limits of his imagination using a single model.

When The Helga Pictures premiered at Washington’s National Gallery of Art in May of 1987, it was viewed by well over a half-million people. On its initial 1987 to 1989 tour, the exhibition traveled under the National Gallery’s auspices to a selection of notable American museums. Since then, portions of the Helga suite have been shown throughout the United States and abroad on special occasions—never more than twice a year, and not every year.

International Arts & Artists was honored to organize a limited tour of more than 70 works from the Helga series, which included finished paintings in tempera and dry brush as well as drawings and works in watercolor.

Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA
April 21 – July 21, 2004

Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH
August 8 – September 19, 2004

Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
October 16, 2004 – January 9, 2005