Henriette Wyeth Hurd (October 22, 1907 – April 3, 1997) was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings. The eldest daughter of illustrator N.C. Wyeth, she studied painting with her father and brother Andrew Wyeth at their home and studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

After she and artist Peter Hurd married, they moved to San Patricio, New Mexico, in the mid-1930s and raised their three children on a ranch there. They were both inspired by the landscape and eventually had a 2200-acre ranch. One of her well-known quotes is: "I don't know what is important and what is unimportant, so I call it all immensely important."

Early life

Henriette Wyeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware, into an artistic family. Wyeth was the eldest of the five children of noted illustrator N.C. Wyeth and his wife Carolyn Bockius. Her siblings Carolyn and Andrew also became artists, and all three studied with their father. Andrew Wyeth became the most well-known artist of this family.

Henriette contracted polio at age 3, which altered her health and use of her right hand. As a result, she learned to draw with her left hand and paint with her right. She grew up on the family farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and attended local Quaker schools. She and her siblings were eventually homeschooled because their father distrusted the public school system. She began formal art lessons with her father at age 11, making charcoal studies and geometric shapes.

Artistic career

thumb|right|Portrait of Patricia Ryan Nixon (1978) by Henriette Wyeth, the White House, Washington, D.C.A child prodigy, Wyeth's work spanned portraits of adults and children, still lifes, and floral landscapes. In her work, she "often included objects that related to the subject's interest or personality". She eventually stopped painting children because, as she said, "today's children--they are so deadpan."

Personal life

At age 21, in 1929 Wyeth married artist Peter Hurd, a fellow student at the Pennsylvania Academy and her father's apprentice. The couple had three children together: Peter Jr., Carolyn, and Michael Hurd. In the mid-1930s they moved to San Patricio, New Mexico, settling on a farm of 40 acres. By 1939, they established the Sentinel Ranch there, gradually acquiring more land until they had 2200 acres. It was in southern New Mexico near Roswell, New Mexico, her husband's birthplace.

Legacy

According to her biography on the Wyeth Hurd Gallery website, she was "considered by many art scholars to be one of the great women painters of the 20th century". Her papers, and those of her husband (who died in 1984), are in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.

Exhibitions

thumb|right|Portrait of Peter Wyeth Hurd (1937) by Henriette Wyeth, [[El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas.]]

Much of her work is held by the Roswell Museum and Art Center, in Roswell Wyeth's work has also been exhibited at such notable institution as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Art Institute of Chicago and New Mexico's Roswell Museum of Art.

  • Exhibition of Paintings by Peter Hurd & Henriette Wyeth (1967), the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus, Ohio

Her work has also been included in a number of posthumous exhibitions:

  • The Wyeths' Wyeths (2010), Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
  • The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art (2010), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
  • The Wyeths: America's Artists (2011), Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan
  • Nomads: Traversing Adolescence (2013), Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kemper East, Kansas City, Missouri

See also

  • Wyeth

References

  • Henriette Wyeth, from Ask Art.
  • Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth Hurd papers, 1917–1989, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
  • Biography, from the Women's International Center.
  • Obituary: "Henriette Wyeth, 89, A Portrait Painter In a Family of Artists", The New York Times, April 6, 1997.