Art: Less Is More

Fabulous old N. C. (for Newell Convers) Wyeth crammed his children's-book illustrations with sunset skies, flashing weapons, taut sails, flowing tresses, war bonnets, redcoats and pieces of eight. Andrew Wyeth, his even more famous son, has gradually emptied his own pictures of all but the barest, palest and sharpest images. As against his father's brocades, Andrew Wyeth's art has the austerity of smoky quartz crystals; yet it is all the richer for that, and the more valued. Last week the Philadelphia Museum of Art bought a typically bare new Wyeth for $35,000. Though...

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