HighWyeth Act

The grandson also rises

VANITIES

Iranscam may be the main attraction on Capitol Hill this summer, but the rest of Washington is watching the Wyeths. Andrew's "Helga" show is at the National Gallery, and this month the Corcoran unveils over a hundred works by America's First Family of painting: grandfather N. C., father Andrew, and son Jamie.

High-level party-hoppers wouldn't miss the Corcoran's opening: the Reagans are invited, as are Charles and Mary Jane Wick, Selwa and Archie Roosevelt, and Daniel Terra, whose new Museum of American Art in Chicago gets the exhibition later this year.

When the show debuted in Russia last spring, the debonair Jamie attended opening ceremonies, while publicity-

shy Andrew stayed at home. "I think the Russians loved the whole continuity thing," reports Jamie, who is equally comfortable painting farm animals or social stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andy Warhol, J.F.K. "I put as much work into my portrait of a pig as I did into my portrait of Rudolf Nureyev. . . . Actually, Rudi was my hardest subject. He was always looking over my shoulder, telling me what he liked."

Wyeth the youngest and his wife, Phyllis (a du Pont), aren't exactly strangers to Washington, though Jamie prefers Monhegan Island, Maine. They keep an apartment in the prev dominantly Republican Watergate, hang out almost exclusively with the Kennedys, and commune with nature on Phyllis's family farm in Virginia's Mellon patch, a.k.a. Middleburg.

"1 love Washington and all the intrigue of politics," confesses Phyllis, whose own artistic talent is lobbying Congress for her favorite charities— historic preservation and the arts. "Oh," she sighs, "1 could lobby all

day long."

Bill Thomas