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Henriette Wyeth Hurd |
Henriette Wyeth Hurd Biography
Henriette Wyeth is the eldest daughter of Newell Convers Wyeth
and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. At the age of eleven she began
studying art under the guidance of her father. She was a sharp
girl although her only general education was in her father's
studio. Henriette inherited her father's determination -- even a
crippled right hand from a childhood struggle with polio could
not prevent her from painting. She attended the Normal Art
School in Boston at the age of thirteen and later the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. During this period of her
life, she was exposed to
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Portrait of
My Father, 1937 |
the
theater which had a great impact on her future paintings. As an
artist, Henriette has the ability to transcend the obvious or
the objective while creating theatrical scale and placement.
After her schooling she returned to Chadds Ford and continued
her art under her father's guidance. It was here where she would
meet Peter Hurd, a student of her father. Their romance became
known to all and they would eventually be married. Before her
marriage, Henriette began an imaginative painting series where
she was inspired by the fantasy of the theater.
Late in
the series Henriette painted Death and the Child. We see
her childhood fantasy transition into the next stage of her life
-- marriage and motherhood. Filled with the tragic moments that
run through every cycle of life, an angel appears from the
background to grab a child and take him back into the dark. It
is filled with her emotions concerning the beginning and end of
being, a theme that would appear frequently in her work.
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Peter Hurd
& Henriette Wyeth Hurd |
After
their wedding, Henriette and Peter moved to Sentinel Ranch in
San Patricio, New Mexico. Henriette was separated from her
family and is still today the only Wyeth to leave the east
coast. However, it was in the West where she would grow not only
as a painter but as the woman who became the matriarch of the
Wyeth Hurd Family. Her energy, elegance and vigor would be
devoted not only to her art but to her family. Her home soon
drew countless guests, wishing to have their portraits painted.
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Portrait of Helen
Hayes, 1978 |
Henriette painted portraits of such well know subjects as
actress Helen Hayes, author Paul Horgan and First Lady Pat
Nixon. Throughout her career, Henriette painted members of her
family including her children Michael and Ann Carol. Capturing
more than a likeness of her subjects, she positions the figure
to be a design of her own creation. She loved painting children
as an embodiment of innocence and youth which to her would not
last forever.
This
fleeting moment of life is also seen in the flowers Henriette
paints. She saw the flowers in Iris and Lilies as fading.
They were part of the moment where after their renewal at
springtime, but this moment would not last forever.
Her
still life compositions impose her feelings on the objects.
The Blue Pitcher demonstrates the basic elements of shape
Henriette had studied in childhood. Her sense of emotion
elevates these elements in importance.
Her
objects show signs of reality but always retain the mystery she
believed each item possessed. Henriette Wyeth's portraits and
still life paintings attest to the fact that she is considered
by many art scholars to be one of the greatest women painters of
the twentieth century.
"Nothing is easy. It is not easy to have a baby, for a tree to
grow -- but that's what is beautiful. That is part of the
beauty. To wish for a life of ease is ridiculous. When I think
about how I really do feel it overcomes me. Then I wonder if
I've done enough." Henriette Wyeth
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