Carolina Comments: Art & Crime

LOOKING: MORE ANDREW WYETH

At Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth (Winston Salem)

The Chief Penguin and I have seen many examples of Andrew Wyeth’s work over the decades, annually in Maine at the Farnsworth Museum and several visits to the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa.  Wyeth divided his time over his life between Pennsylvania where he grew up and the coast of Maine.  This exhibit at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art focuses on the farm neighboring the Wyeth’s property in Pennsylvania and includes some works never previously exhibited.   I liked all the angles in Grindstone, angles that contrast with the roundness of the stone almost outside the painting.

After his father’s death from a train collision in 1945, Andrew Wyeth became more aware of his mortality and was drawn to the cycles of life and death on the Kuerner Farm.  Karl Kuerner became a sort of surrogate father to him, and he painted both Karl and his wife, Anna, many times. 

 The paintings in this exhibit are stark and muted, mainly in browns and white, and frequently depict the buildings and the landscape in snow.  Most are watercolors and a few are egg tempura.  The plaques describing each work are more detailed than in many museums and inform the viewer about Wyeth’s technique and offer more context for the image.  One late work is both realistic and fanciful as it depicts friends and others, alive and long gone, dancing around a maypole with colorful ribbons.

It’s a thoughtful exhibit and is on view until May 25.  It then travels to the Brandywine River Museum outside Philadelphia and from there goes on view in Jacksonville, Florida, beginning in October.  

If you haven’t ever visited Reynolda House, it’s worth a trip.  The house was built in 1917, in American Country House style, for R.J. Reynolds and his wife Katharine.  The rooms are beautifully restored, and the walls feature a wide-ranging collection of both historic and more contemporary works by American artists.  In nice weather the formal gardens beckon.

WATCHING: CRIME IN LONDON

The Chelsea Detective Season 3 (Acorn)

Quirky Detective Inspector Max Arnold lives on a houseboat and has an on-again off-again relationship with his ex-wife Astrid. He banters regularly with his well-meaning and somewhat interfering Aunt Olivia.  In Season 3, when he and Astrid decide to be just friends, he takes a stab at the dating scene with a horticulturist.

Max and his colleague DS Layla Walsh team up to solve murders in London’s affluent Chelsea district.  The murders are frequently unusual. What begins as a clearcut case becomes more complex with multiple suspects and sometimes international intrigue.  Chief Forensics Officer or pathologist, Ashley Wilton, rounds out the cast, and as a deaf actor is evidence of greater diversity in TV casting. 

Episodes are 90 minutes each and are being released weekly.  There are 4 episodes total in this season, and the Chief Penguin and I have enjoyed the first two.  Recommended!

Note: All unattributed photos by JWFarrington. Header photo of Fenced in, 2001, is one of the few Wyeth works with color, red on the horse’s blanket and on a distant barn.