Chicken Mash

For over half a century, Andrew Wyeth's art has proven to be the most enduring of any American Realist, bringing the artist considerable acclaim both at home and abroad. His work has been appreciated for its seeming simplicity and its sheer beauty, for its celebration of rural American life, and for the haunting, elegiac silence that often pervades his compositions, such as Chicken Mash. As Susan C. Larsen writes, "Andrew Wyeth generally offered mystery rather than certainty in his art. The power of the unseen at work in nature and in human life gives his art its power and unique presence" (Wondrous Strange, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1998, p. 18).
Indeed, an intimate scene of poignant beauty, Chicken Mash demonstrates the best of Andrew Wyeth's hauntingly beautiful interiors. Shrouded in a careful shadow and void of any apparent human presence, Wyeth utilizes sweeping brushwork to create a sense of atmosphere within the scene. The present work depicts a scene in the Olson family home on Hathorn Point in Cushing, Maine. The Olson's daughter, Christina, is the subject of Wyeth's masterwork Christina's World (The Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Emblematic of his genius technique, Chicken Mash captures the deeply personal connection that permeates the artist’s best work. In this ceaselessly enigmatic composition, Wyeth provokes the viewer to contemplate the mysteries to be found within his vision of modern American life.