FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEWS ADELSON GALLERIES PRESENTS: JAMIE WYETH: WORKS FROM KINGDOM HOSPITAL MARCH 4 – APRIL 2, 2004 To coincide with the premiere of the new ABC-TV dramatic series Kingdom Hospital on March 3, executive produced by the celebrated master of horror and National Book Award recipient Stephen King, Adelson Galleries, Inc. in New York City will exhibit a small selection of drawings and mixed- media paintings by renowned artist Jamie Wyeth created especially for the series. Jamie Wyeth: Works from Kingdom Hospital will be on view in the gallery's salon from March 4 through April 2, 2004. Wyeth's work is pivotal to one of the storylines and introduces the audience to a central character in a surprising way. "Jamie Wyeth and I first met in 1974 when I joined Coe Kerr Gallery, which represented Jamie and his father, Andrew Wyeth," said Warren Adelson, president of Adelson Galleries, Inc. "I am delighted to be representing him again after a thirteen-year hiatus and am pleased to welcome him with a selection of the drawings and paintings that he has made for Kingdom Hospital. " In fact, Adelson was responsible for bringing Wyeth to the attention of his long-time friend, Mark Carliner, the show's other executive producer. In June, 2003, during a casual dinner in New York, Carliner described the plot of the series, which is based on the Lars von Trier Danish mini-series The Kingdom, and which King, the literary giant of suspense, has adapted and reworked for American television. The show centers on the seemingly miraculous recovery of an artist who is the victim of a gruesome accident and requires an extended hospitalization; it draws heavily from King's own personal, near-death experience in 1999 when he was nearly killed by an out-of-control minivan while walking near his home in Maine. After hearing more details about the character, Adelson suggested that rather than have the series' production company hire a commercial artist to create the artwork, it would be more meaningful to have a well-known artist create real drawings and paintings. "The first and most obvious choice to me was Jamie Wyeth, who has a deep feeling towards Maine where he lives a good part of the year," said Adelson. "Moreover, Wyeth's figurative work reflects much of the sense of isolation and, to some extent, the insularity of Maine. I thought he would be a perfect interpreter for the story's protagonist." Carliner, who knew Wyeth's work, loved the idea and contacted King the next morning. "Wyeth's visual imagery on canvas-the vivid contrasts, dark edges and subterranean life-reflects the literary imagery in King's oeuvre making for a perfect collaboration. It's not unexpected that the influence of Maine informs both artists' work and that the prospect of working together was appealing," he said. All of these discussions, however, were taking place without Wyeth's knowledge. When Adelson called him on his island in Maine after not having been in contact for a while, Wyeth was fascinated by the concept. After reading the scripts for the first two episodes, he joined the project with great enthusiasm and created two mixed-media paintings of a mysterious character-the likes of which has never before been seen on television-and a few dozen pencil drawings that relate to people and places in the story. As a result of this project, Wyeth decided that he wanted to be represented by Adelson Galleries. James (Jamie) Browning Wyeth (b. July 6, 1946) has attracted considerable attention since adolescence as a third-generation American artist: son of Andrew Wyeth, among the country's most popular artists, and grandson of Newell Convers Wyeth, famous for his distinctive illustrations for the classic novels by Stevenson, Cooper and Scott. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, just south of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where he grew up and still lives part of each year, he left public school after the sixth grade to be home-tutored so he could devote more time to art; he spent at least eight hours a day studying, sketching and painting. By the age of 18, Wyeth's paintings hung in the permanent collections of the Wilmington Society of Art in Wilmington, Delaware, and in the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, as well as in several private collections. A sensitive observer of his rural surroundings, Wyeth began painting livestock and other animals with the same care and intensity that he devoted to portraits of people. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he received commissions to paint portraits of Delaware Governor Charles L. Terry and a posthumous portrait of President John F. Kennedy. His painting was also gaining acclaim at that time through an exhibition of his work along with his father's and grandfather's in 1971 at the newly opened Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford. Since then, Wyeth has had several one-man exhibitions, including those at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1980), Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth (1981), Anchorage Fine Arts Museum (1983), Portland Museum of Art in Maine (1984) and Decatur House in Washington, DC (1995). His works are also included in many public collections, including those of the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago; The National Gallery of Art and The National Portrait Gallery, both in Washington, DC; John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska; William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington; and Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Wyeth is a participating lender for the United States Department of State, Art in Embassies Program. He holds honorary degrees from Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (1975); Dickinson School of Law, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (1983); Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (1987); University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont (1988); and Westbrook College, Portland, Maine (1993). Adelson Galleries, Inc. is noted for its expertise in the field of American art and the work of John Singer Sargent in particular. In 1980, Warren Adelson, an internationally recognized authority on Sargent, initiated scholarship on the John Singer Sargent Catalogue Raisonné in partnership with the artist's great-nephew, Richard Ormond. To date, three volumes of the Catalogue Raisonné have been published by Yale University Press. The gallery has also made significant contributions to the study of American art through critically acclaimed loan exhibitions and accompanying publications including Sargent's Women (2003), Maurice Prendergast: Paintings of America (2003), From the Artist's Studio: Unknown Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt (2000), Childe Hassam: An American Impressionist (1999) and Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes (1997). Kingdom Hospital will debut with a two-hour premiere on Wednesday, March 3 at 9:00 P.M. ET/PT on ABC-TV; the series will then air in its regular timeslot of Wednesdays at 10:00 P.M. ET/PT. Kingdom Hospital is executive produced by Stephen King and Mark Carliner. Bob Phillips, Richard Dooling and Tom Brodeck are producers. Bruce Dunn and Mary Anne Waterhouse are co-producers. The entire series is directed by Craig Baxley. Kingdom Hospital is a production of Touchstone Television and Mark Carliner Productions in association with Sony Pictures Television. Adelson Galleries, Inc., is open to the public Monday-Friday 9:30-5:30. The galleries are located in The Mark Hotel, 25 East 77th Street, Third Floor, New York, NY. Tel: 212.439.6800. Fax: 212.439.6870. E-mail: [email protected] .