The Helga series is widely recognized as some of Andrew Wyeth’s most evocative of works. Watch the video below and listen as Helga, the inspiration behind these paintings, shares a glimpse into the private world of an Artist and his Muse.

For more than 15 years, Andrew Wyeth created 250 secret paintings. He hid them from everyone—including his wife, who was also his business manager—in the loft of a millhouse near his home in rural Pennsylvania. When they were discovered, in 1986, they generated a media frenzy that extended well outside the art world. The Helga paintings, as they came to be called, all depicted a single subject… Helga Testorf.