Andrew Wyeth

Capturing a world on a small piece of paper, Blue Cap presents the back of a man’s wind-whipped head—wearing the eponymous blue cap—against a wide expanse of dark sea with a distant coastline at center. The intimate, horizontal cropping of the image allows many narrative possibilities—perhaps he is a fisherman returning to shore, or instead, a land-dweller pondering over the rough water. The present watercolor was executed in the midst of Wyeth’s alternately celebrated and maligned “Helga Pictures,” in which the artist captured his neighbor Helga "Testy" Testorf in more than 268 works produced from 1971 to 1985. Executed entirely in watercolor and drybrush, the present work also represents a tonal study in the color blue; indeed, the blue of the cap is different from the blue of the sky, and the water, and the jacket. In the midst of this melancholy, only the figure's left ear stands out as a moment of warmth.