The Raven

"I was alone for two months when I was doing [Raven], and I got this whole thing of, ‘Is it alive with me, in the dark?’ Totally freaked me out."

This large-scale painting marks Wyeth’s transition from New York City to the worlds of Monhegan and Southern Islands. Andy Warhol saw it in 1980, at Wyeth’s one-man exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; after visiting, he noted in his diary that "Jamie is painting bigger—more Pop—pictures now. I told him he should go even bigger." With mottled, glossy feathers and one gleaming, beady eye, this larger-than-life raven approaches the edge of the canvas with its beak partly open, ready to attack its prey.