At first glance it does look as if the presence of actor Charlton Heston is just one more ploy in the publicity campaign. Some may call this video itself part of the same high-pitched promotion that has been distorting public perception of these remarkable works. (Next stop: the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, beginning Sunday.) The media circus that followed - which milked implicit questions about Wyeth's relationship to Helga - is being kept alive, according to many critics, by the shameless hype attending the pictures' national tour. Wyeth produced the works over some 15 years, hiding them from view and finally selling them to a collector. The video's subject is a series of Andrew Wyeth paintings and works-on-paper - including nude studies - of a German woman named Helga Testorf, who lived near his farm in Chadds Ford, Pa. I KNOW it's hard, but try to view this informative and low-key art video as if you'd never read a thing about the Helga pictures - as if you'd never seen Helga's compelling face on the cover of Time and Newsweek or seen her figure splashed across newspapers and television screens this past year. Available in VHS or Beta ($39.95) and laser videodisc (59.95). The Helga Pictures Study of works by Andrew Wyeth.
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