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The Helga Pictures are a series of more than 268 paintings and drawings of German model Helga Testorf (born c. 1933 [1] [2] or c. 1939 [3] [4]) created by American artist Andrew Wyeth between 1971 and 1985.
Testorf became one of Wyeth's most famous models in what became known as The Helga Pictures. In 1978 he would paint Overflow , one of the most famous Helga paintings, where the overflow is seen through a window behind the nude, reclining Testorf.
Andrew Wyeth met Helga Testorf in 1971 while she was nursing Karl Kuerner at the farm. A German immigrant, she lived across Ring Road from the farm with her husband. She soon began secretly modeling for Wyeth in a famous series of paintings and drawings. That year the first nude painting in the series was painted in the sewing room in the farm ...
Andrew Wyeth. Untitled, 1986. Watercolor on paper, B3150. Unframed: 11 x 14 in. Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.
Braids (1979), portrait of Helga Testorf. In 1986, extensive coverage was given to the revelation of a series of 247 studies of the German-born Helga Testorf, whom Wyeth met while she was attending to Karl Kuerner at his farm. Wyeth painted her over the period 1971 to 1985 without the knowledge of either his wife or Helga's husband, John ...
Its subject model was Helga Testorf. Upon completion, Wyeth took the watercolor with him to Maine, thinking the idea could render a larger work. While there, Wyeth happened upon an Old German Church in Waldoboro, Maine and envisioned a bride alone in the front pew donned with a crown of flowers. [5]
This is aptly demonstrated by his landmark series of paintings known as the "Helga" pictures, the largest group of portraits of a single person by any major artist (247 studies of his neighbor Helga Testorf, clothed and nude, in varying surroundings, painted during the period 1971–1985).
Weymouth was the confidant who discreetly hid Andrew Wyeth's nudes of Prussian-born neighbor and caretaker Helga Testorf for 17 years before they became public. In the 2004 documentary, The Way Back: A Portrait of George A. Weymouth , Andrew Wyeth said he didn't "know of anyone who means as much to me."