Andrew Wyeth (American, born 1917)
That Gentleman, 1960
Tempera on panel
23 1/2 x 47 3/4 in. (59.69 x 121.28 cm)
Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1962.27
© 1960 Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth is the youngest son of artist and illustrator Newell Convers Wyeth, whose work is also represented in the Dallas Museum of Art’s collections. N. C. Wyeth encouraged his son’s interest in art, stressing the need for solid academic drawing as the fundament of all art. In his choice of subject matter, Andrew Wyeth represents an alternative naturalistic tradition of painting amidst the predominantly nonrepresentational schools that have dominated American art since the late 1940s. While his works acknowledge the influence of Rembrandt, Dürer, and Winslow Homer, they also contain a strong element of abstract design aligning him with his earlier contemporaries, Charles Sheeler and Charles Burchfield.

That Gentleman evokes the pensive mood and quality of repose that are hallmarks of Wyeth’s best work. The artist’s model was Tom Clark, a local resident of Chester County. Impressed with his quiet strength, Wyeth wrote of his sitter, “His voice is gentle, his wit keen, and his wisdom enormous. He is not a character, but a very dignified gentleman who might otherwise have gone unrecorded.” In preparation for this work, as he did for most of his paintings, Wyeth made several preliminary sketches in pencil. In one of his sketches for That Gentleman, in the Dallas Museum of Art’s collections, Wyeth has focused on capturing the angles of Tom Clark’s face; the artist’s economic line is balanced by more fluid brushwork, imparting a sense of contemplation to both the sitter and the scene.

Wyeth’s emphasis on the qualities of patience and calm in his painting draws attention to the exactitude demanded by his technique. Tempera paints are made by mixing powdered dry pigments with egg yolks, thinned with water. This medium, most often associated with 15th-century Flemish painting, demands careful draftsmanship and exacting precision. Wyeth learned the technique from his brother-in-law, Peter Hurd. Tempera enjoyed a renewed popularity with American artists during the 1930s–1950s, many of whom apparently rediscovered the technique independently. Wyeth reserved tempera for his most ambitious works, believing that the textures achieved in tempera “hold a power of mysterious suggestion beyond representation.”