Self-Portrait

Like his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth, and his father, Andrew Wyeth before him, Jamie Wyeth was a precocious talent as a painter and he was elected associate member of the National Academy at the young age of twenty-three. Like his forebears, the figure is one of Wyeth's primary subjects and often set within a landscape or clearly defined interior space. "Self-Portrait" is something of an anomalous painting for the artist. Portrayed as a half-length nude against a dark background, the artist has rendered himself in an intense chiaroscuro, a stark juxtaposition of light and shade.