Rockland — The Farnsworth Art Museum is ready to launch the fourth season of its popular annual lecture series Achieving American Art. The lectures will be held every Wednesday at the Strand Theatre, 345 Main St., at 5:30 p.m. May 4 through June 8.

The six-part series, this year titled Andrew Wyeth and Post-World War II Art, will examine the art of Andrew Wyeth, particularly the 30 years (1938–1968) that he worked at the Olson House in Cushing, in the broader context of American art.

Wyeth was one of many American artists whose work was representational, depicting and referencing their observations of the world in which they lived. At the same time, however, and especially after World War II, abstraction increasingly became the artistic language of the avant-garde. How then does one assess the work of Wyeth within this historical context of American art?

This year’s Achieving American Art will be an art historical lead-up to the Farnsworth’s summer exhibition "Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World and the Olson House" (June 11 through Oct. 30). Series tickets are $72, $60 for Farnsworth members. Individual lecture tickets are available with no reservations at the door for $15, $12 for museum members. Full-time students and teachers are admitted free, but reservations are required. For more information, call the Farnsworth's education department at 596-0949 or visit farnsworthmuseum.org/education.

The first lecture on May 4 is titled American Art from the Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the Great Depression. Julie Caro, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in American Art at Colby College, will discuss the ideas, styles and controversies that characterized the American art world into which Wyeth emerged as an artist. Beginning with the Ash Can School to the infamous 1913 Armory Show that introduced European modernism to this country through the work of the Precisionists, American Scene Painters and Social Realists, this lecture will examine the artistic and cultural context of Wyeth’s early career.