Andrew Wyeth - Helga

The Helga Pictures are a series of more than 240 paintings and drawings of German model Helga Testorf created by Andrew Wyeth (July 12, 1917 - January 16, 2009) between 1971 and 1985. Testorf was a neighbour of Wyeth's in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, and over the course of fifteen years posed for Wyeth indoors and out of doors, nude and clothed, in attitudes that reminded writers of figures painted by Botticelli and Edouard Manet. To John Updike, her body "is what Winslow Homer’s maidens would have looked like beneath their calico." The sessions were a secret even to their spouses. Although Wyeth denied that there had been a physical relationship with Testorf, the secrecy surrounding the sessions and public speculation of an affair created a strain in the Wyeths' marriage. Well after the paintings were finished Testorf remained close to Wyeth and helped care for him in his old age.