THE SECRET SITS. Wyeth’s Wonderland. An exhibition on the French photographer Joséphine Douet

To coincide with the exhibition Wyeth: Andrew and Jamie in the Studio, the Museum is presenting an exhibition on the French photographer #josphinedouet who, during the course of a month, followed the American realist painter #andrewwyeth (1917-2009), photographing the places and motifs that inspired him in his native city of Chadds Ford (Pennsylvania, USA) from a new viewpoint.
Douet's decision to create a photographic survey of this small American city can be seen as an artistic challenge based on her admiration for the artist, who has always been one of her key reference points. Douet set out to capture the mystery and essence of Wyeth's work, walking around the hills near Chadds Ford and portraying its current inhabitants. Coexisting alongside these people and places allowed the photographer to obtain a new perspective on the artist, while also creating her own, intimate mood in the scenes depicted.
The 27 photographs by Douet in the exhibition thus offer a recreation of Wyeth's output as well as a variation on it, given that both the vision of the everyday offered by these two artists and the secrets that they reveal in their works are different. “I have constructed close and profound relations with the people of Chadds Ford”, Douet explains, “and also with Andrew Wyeth's former models, sharing amazing moments with Helga, his secret muse for fifteen years.”
Joséphine Douet is a French photographer who has lived and worked in #madrid since 1998. Her work has been exhibited in the Visa pour l'image festival (2014) and PhotoEspaña (2010), as well as in Spanish and French galleries. For ten years she photographed Parisian haute couture from backstage in catwalk shows for her series Coutures, while at the present time she is the official photographer for the Spanish fashion house Delpozo. Her most recent projects are Alma Herida (2015), which offers a focus on bullfighters' bodies and the marks left on them by their trade: Silences (2014), a photographic essay on everything that normally remains unseen within the world of bullfighting: and The price to pay (2010), which presents a portrait of the bullfighter José María Manzanares, revealing the most hidden and personal aspects of his activities.
The exhibition is displayed in the balcony-gallery on the Museum's first floor, with free entry from the Central Hall. It has benefited from the support of Giacometti Peron, an international communications strategy consultancy founded in 2008 by Pierre Giacometti and Alain Peron.

EXHIBITION INFORMATION:
Title: The Secret Sits. Wyeth’s Wonderland
Organiser: #museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Supported by: Giacometti Peron & Associés
Venue and dates: #madrid, #museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1 March to 19 June 2016
Curator: Guillermo Solana
Coordinator: Laura Andrada, Curatorial Department, #museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Number of works: 27 photographs
VISITOR INFORMATION:
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Address: Paseo del Prado 8, 28014, #madrid. Balcony-gallery, 1st floor
Opening times: Tuesdays to Sundays, 10am to 7pm; Mondays, 12 noon to 4pm
Free entry
More information: www.museothyssen.org