I don’t agree with assessments of Andrew Wyeth’s work that label it “drab and kitschy” but toward the reviews of it as “profound reflections of 20th Century alienation and existentialism.”
This Washington Post obit includes a photo gallery of Wyeth and his work. Here’s one of his most famous images, Christina’s World:
The Christian Science Monitor has republished its review of Wyeth’s 1976 exhibit but the Village Voice’s suggestion for how the work impact’s young art students really could apply to all of us:
For young art students, Wyeth’s austere hand and arid eye merits a legacy exactly as instructive as the frenzied steam-heat of Pollock or the depressive megaton weight of Rothko, his contemporaries and foils in the era of ’40s high Modernism. The fact he chose to speak quietly and seek beauty was its own kind of bravery. Wyeth believed that all could benefit from knowing sentimental reverie, and the man had a point.
Particularly that last line.