Wyeth, Henriette

Henriette Wyeth, born in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, was the oldest child of the famous illustrator and artist, Newel Convers Wyeth. Her father recognized her exceptional ability to draw by the time she was five. Henriette developed her technique at her father’s side and continued her formal studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. By the age of twenty, she was a successful portrait painter, earning numerous commissions.

Though Henriette vowed never to marry a painter, she fell in love with Peter Hurd, a handsome young artist from New Mexico who came to Chadds Ford to study with her father. They were married in 1929 and eventually moved to the Sentinel Ranch in San Patricio, New Mexico, to raise a family and pursue their painting careers.

Henriette is nationally recognized not only for her sensitive and mysterious still-life paintings but also her stunning realist portraits. She captured the personality and mood of her subject and rendered them in her incomparable style. During her career, Henriette received portrait commissions from such notables as Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III, Mrs. Pat Nixon, and Mrs. Helen Hayes.

Her paintings are represented in the permanent collections of the Brandywine River Museum, Pennsylvania; the Los Angeles Athletic Club, California; the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington; the Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico; the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the Fine Art Museum, Texas Tech University.

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