( L )《 Letting Her Hair Down 》 tempera painting, 1972. / ( R )《 On Her knees 》 1977.
The Helga Pictures are a series of more than 240 paintings and drawings of German model Helga Testorf created by Andrew Wyeth between 1971 and 1985.
Testorf was a neighbor of Wyeth‘s in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and over the course of fifteen years posed for Wyeth indoors and out of doors, nude and clothed, in attitudes that reminded writers of figures painted by Botticelli and Edouard Manet.
Although Wyeth denied that there had been a physical relationship with Testorf, the secrecy surrounding the sessions and public speculation of an affair created a strain in the Wyeths‘ marriage.