Introduction
Henriette Wyeth Hurd (October 22, 1907 – April 3, 1997) was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings.
Early life and career
She was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the eldest of the five children of illustrator N.C. Wyeth and his wife Carolyn Bockius. Her siblings Carolyn Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth also became artists. She contracted polio at age 3, which altered her right hand. As a result, she learned to draw with her left and paint with her right. She grew up on the family's farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and attended local Quaker schools. She began studying with her father at age 11. At age 13, she was enrolled in the Normal Arts School in Boston, Massachusetts. She subsequently studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Wyeth met her husband, artist Peter Hurd, while he was working as an assistant to her father. The couple married in 1929, and they had three children: Peter Jr., Carolyn and Michael Hurd. They established the Sentinel Ranch in San Patricio, near Roswell, New Mexico in 1938.
Her best known work is the official White House portrait of First Lady Pat Nixon. She exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy (1927, 1936–44), where she was awarded the 1937 Mary Smith Prize for a portrait of her son Peter. She received other awards for her work, including the Governor's Award in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Much of her work is located at The Roswell Museum and Art Center, in Roswell, New Mexico. and at the Hurd La Rinconada Gallery in San Patricio, NM.
Her papers, and those of her husband (who died in 1984), are in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.