For the First Time: Andrew Wyeth, In His Own Words, On the Famous Helga Paintings - Just Published – "Wyeth on Helga"

The Naples Museum of Art, Naples, Florida, announces a limited-edition monograph featuring a candid interview with Andrew Wyeth – his first in-depth conversation about the controversial Helga paintings.

Naples, FL (PRWEB) April 28, 2006 -- Andrew Wyeth finally breaks his silence – talking at length about his famous Helga paintings in an exclusive interview with Thomas Hoving, art scholar and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The interview is being published in a new monograph, "Wyeth on Helga," available now from the Naples Museum of Art.

Since they were first shown at Washington's National Gallery of Art two decades ago, "The Helga Pictures" have been the subject of considerable interest, debate and gossip. But Wyeth himself has never talked at length on the subject – with one exception. In 2002, Wyeth sat down with Thomas Hoving and discussed the origins and evolution of the Helga series. In the spring of 2006, Hoving agreed to allow the Naples Museum of Art to publish this interview for the first time, as a companion to the exhibition "Andrew Wyeth & Family."

Secretly created over a 15-year period, the 240 works that make up "The Helga Pictures" provide an intimate, unprecedented look at a major American artist exploring a single subject, Wyeth's Pennsylvania neighbor Helga Testorf.

In this candid interview, Wyeth reveals how he met Helga, how the series – and his relationship with Helga – grew and the fact that he never intended to show these works publicly. "My intention was to keep 'em hidden away until I died," he says. "Then they could be revealed."

"Wyeth on Helga" is an important addition to the literature on Andrew Wyeth and to the literature on American art.

For more information about this historic, limited-edition monograph, please call Myra Janco Daniels at (239) 597-1111.