Wyeth, now 75, has never been a slacker, so it was no surprise that he'd been busy. But the yarn that went with these pictures was a doozie: The artist claimed to have conducted the sittings in secret for 15 years, without telling his wife, Betsy, his very hands-on business manager.
Posing indoors and out, asleep and awake, bundled into winter coats and sprawled without wearing a stitch, Helga had become Wyeth's haystacks, his water lilies, his Rouen cathedral. As described, this exceedingly discreet arrangement spawned rumors that Wyeth's obsession with his zaftig blond muse was more than professional.
Wyeth didn't get around to denying this scurrilous talk until the entire Helga suite had been sold intact to a Newtown Square collector for a reported $6 million and dispatched on a seven-city U.S. tour that started at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art said "No, thanks" when approached to be a venue.
Once the works were hung for public inspection, the critics weren't kind. Reviewers dished out cruelties like "banal," "repetitive and uninspired," ''built upon fabricated titillation" and "as deadly in their 'sensitiveness' as greeting cards.' "
It was subsequently reported that several of the pictures had been published, sold and exhibited during the alleged secrecy period, most likely with Betsy Wyeth's knowledge. Wyeth also gave her one as a gift in 1982.
And who was Helga, the woman Betsy Wyeth said she never met? None other than her sister-in-law's cook and housekeeper.
We've been had, yelped the art establishment. However, none of this information dented attendance figures, which set records in a couple of places. For many, the fascination lay more with Wyeth's fascination with Helga than with the result.
Now Helga returns without the slightest suggestion that she and Wyeth are an item. The only mystery attached to her now is who currently owns the pictures.
