Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) is perhaps not a widely known name outside of the States, but he was one of the greats of middle 20th century American art. His oeuvre was American Regionalism, the realist art movement that depicted scenes from the rural, small-town America of the Midwest. Land and people, painted by an artist with an appreciation for nature and the ability to fire the imagination. He was born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, into an established art-oriented family, his father being the celebrated artist and illustrator N C Wyeth. Andrew was brought up on the art of Winslow Homer, the poetry of Robert Frost and the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and was thus inspired intellectually as well as artistically.

One of Wyeth’s best-known works is his tempera painting Christina’s World, which is held in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; it was painted in 1948, when he was 31 years old. The work depicts his neighbour, Christina Olson, sprawled on a dry field facing her house in the distance, in Cushing, Maine. Christina had a degenerative muscular disorder that rendered her unable to walk, and she spent most of her time at home. She was firmly against using a wheelchair and so would crawl everywhere, and Wyeth was inspired to create the painting when he saw her crawling across the field.

Christina’s World was first exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in Manhattan in 1948. It received little attention from critics at the time, but Alfred Barr, the founding director of the MoMA, bought the painting for $1,800 and it gradually grew in popularity to the point that today, it is considered an icon of American art. The Olson house itself has been preserved and renovated to match its appearance in Christina’s World, and because of Wyeth’s profile, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in June 2011.