Jamie Wyeth

Jamie Wyeth emerges in these diary entries as both a working painter and a figure moving through a network of family, museum, political, and social connections. The record places him at the center of a hospitable Wyeth household in Chadds Ford, before shifting to his growing public and political profile: by December 1976, he was described as Jimmy Carter’s court painter, and in March 1977 he was still painting Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Family and the Wyeth household

In November 1976, a visit to Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth’s home brought the diary’s narrator into the extended Wyeth family circle. Andrew Wyeth, identified as Jamie’s father, was there, along with Andrew’s two sisters. The household also received Frolic Weymouth, a neighbor whom the diary described as depressed after his wife had left him. The gathering’s long dinner, drinks, and late night give Jamie’s home a social life beyond its role as the setting for a painter’s work.

The visit extended into the following day. After a morning tour of Winterthur and a ride in a buggy across the Brandywine River, the narrator went with Jamie to the Brandywine Museum, where they were photographed and took part in a press conference. Back at the Wyeth home, cocktails brought together visitors including Carter Brown and Jane Holzer. The diary thus connects Jamie’s family setting to the public presentation of his art: the museum appearance was not separate from domestic hospitality but part of the same visit.

Museum appearances and social connections

The museum visit also produced a small social misunderstanding involving Gigi. The narrator introduced her as “George,” intending a joke about her being a drag queen; a man took the introduction seriously and became interested in her. Gigi replied that she was Georgette, which the narrator noted was her real name, while remaining unaware of the man’s misunderstanding. Jamie was present on the museum outing, which the diary recounts through the comic mismatch between the narrator’s joke, Gigi’s response, and the stranger’s assumptions.

A month later, Jamie appeared in a different circle at lunch at Les Pléiades with Lincoln Kirstein and Jean Kennedy Smith. The diary reports that Jamie had just spent a week in Plains and was now Carter’s court painter. The lunch included a request to turn off the tape recorder, marking a boundary around what could be recorded even as the gathering involved prominent political and cultural figures.

Political recognition and portrait work

At the lunch, Jean Kennedy Smith asked the narrator to accompany her to the coat room, where she produced an American quilt and asked whether it was real. After the narrator confirmed that it was, she gave it to Jamie. The account contrasts this gift with her recollection of buying ordinary shirts for her family at Bloomingdale’s: the quilt, presented to Jamie, carried a different significance in the narrator’s telling. The diary interprets her attention as a possible crush, while making clear that this is the narrator’s impression rather than a confirmed relationship.

Jamie’s political connection is presented alongside his continued work as a portrait painter. In March 1977, he was still painting Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was still posing. The brief report places the two men together in the working routine of the studio, with lunch provided for Jamie and Arnold and Alex Heinrici stopping by to touch something up. The entry gives no account of the portrait’s completion or reception; what it establishes is the persistence of the sitting and Jamie’s position as an active painter whose work brought him into contact with both political and celebrity circles.