One aspect of the Brandywine River Museum that I cherish most, and many visitors appreciate as well, is the opportunity to view portraits of Helga that are often on display in the Andrew Wyeth Gallery.

From 1971 to 1985, Wyeth painted and sketched Helga Testorf, a German neighbor of the Wyeth’s who had been a nurse to the owner of the Keurner farm in his dying years. Known collectively as The Helga Pictures, Andrew Wyeth’s 247 known works of his neighbor Helga Testorf are one the most distinguished and ample studies of a single subject by a lone artist. The Brandywine River Museum is currently host to three beautiful examples: Lovers, 1981, Night Shadow, 1978 and Baracoon completed in 1976. All the works of Helga that are featured in museum are visually stunning and capture light and skin tone in such a manner that the viewer might be fooled into thinking they are sitting in Andrew’s position as he paints her. As the viewer, I feel as though I am looking in on a private moment of true intimacy between artist and model.

Contemporary artist Collier Schorr was especially inspired by Andrew’s paintings. The American born photographer was fascinated by how Andrew grew to know his subjects personally and on a level of intimacy that some claim to be rather obsessive in nature. Enthralled with this notion of intruding on a personal and private moment, Schorr followed her muse, German teenager Jens F., for nearly six years after meeting him on a train in 1999.  Schorr used Helga as a template for her photographs of Jens. For more information about Collier Schorr’s inspiration from Andrew Wyeth, see the art21 blog at http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/collier-schorr.