Wyeth’s ‘Helga’ images are sold

Andrew Wyeth’s storied collection of 240 images of neighbor Helga Testorf has been sold to an American buyer and is no longer in the custody of the Brandywine River Museum in suburban Philadelphia.

Ann Richards Nitze of Washington, D.C., who arranged the sale of the Helga Pictures, declined to identify the buyer or the price to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported the sale in Sunday’s editions. The new owner has taken custody of the collection; museum spokesman Halsey Spruance said he does not know where it is now.

Wyeth sold the collection of paintings, watercolors and pencil studies to someone who, in turn, sold it in 1989 to a Japanese collector. That buyer had entrusted it to the Brandywine until the sale last week.