Andrew Wyeth was the youngest of five children, born on July 12, 1917 in a southwestern town in Pennsylvania named Chadds Ford Township. Wyeth was home-schooled due to his frail health and was taught by his father and famous painter, N.C. Wyeth. Since his father was so fond of Henry Thoreau and Robert Frost's work, his teachings of appreciation for art also passed down to young Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth started drawing very young, and his work was produced under his father's name while he was still in his teens. From the help of his father, he mastered figure study and watercolor, and later learned egg tempera. Tragically, Wyeth's father and nephew were struck by a train in the fall of 1945 when their vehicle stalled on the tracks. This sparked something in Wyeth, his art blossomed into the mature enduring style that is seen today.
At twenty years old, Wyeth had his first single man exhibition of watercolors at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City, and the entire inventory sold out. He was a realist painter, as his favorite subjects were the people and environment around him. Andrew bought a summer home in Cushing, Maine, and in 1939 he met Betsy James, whom he would marry later in 1940. Wyeth was introduced to Christina Olson, who would become the icon of his painting, "Christina's World." .
At his summer home, his neighbor was Olson, who suffered from polio, and he became inspired by her. One evening he caught himself watching out of the window at Olson who was crawling across the field. Although Christina Olson was the inspiration of the painting, she was not the only one. Betsy, Wyeth's wife who was then fifty-five, also posed a part of the painting model, for she was the torso of Christina. Christina's World was first exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in Manhattan in 1948. The painting received very little attention from critics, but was quickly bought by Alfred Barr, founder of the Museum of Modern Art.