Wyeth at SAM

It’s all about the textures at the Seattle Art Museum’s brilliant 100th anniversary retrospective on Andrew Wyeth, an iconic American artist who saw early fame, fashionable anti-realist dismissal, and re-discovery.

Hair. Cloth. Water. A peeling wall. The frayed texture of a man’s corduroy jacket. Rock. And especially grass: he was a genius about grass. You only grasp just how brilliant his technique was, especially in tempera, when you see the paintings for real. An effort is required not to reach out and touch them.