Henriette Wyeth
| Henriette Wyeth | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 22, 1907 |
| Died | April 3, 1997 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | N.C. Wyeth |
| Alma mater | Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Painting |
| Spouse(s) | Peter Hurd |
Henriette Wyeth Hurd (October 22, 1907 – April 3, 1997) was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings.
Henriette Wyeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware, into an artistic family. Wyeth was 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, with Andrew Wyeth becoming the most consistently well-known artist of this creative 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. Her and her siblings were eventually homeschooled because her father distrusted the public school system. She began formal art lessons with her father at age 11, studying charcoal studies and geometric shapes. A child prodigy, at age 13 she was enrolled in the Normal Arts School in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1921, Wyeth entered the Boston Museum of Art Academy, and two years later began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By age 16, she was well known as a portraitist and received commissions for paintings of Wilmington residents. Heavily influenced by her father's unique realistic style, she rejected painting genres, such as Impressionism and Cubism. She was socially and politically conservative, which lead to her also rejecting progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s, including the women's movement, and criticizing television and modern culture.
At age 21, Wyeth married artist Peter Hurd, her father's apprentice and a fellow student at the Pennsylvania Academy. The couple married in 1929, and had three children: Peter Jr., Carolyn and Michael Hurd. In 1938, they established the Sentinel Ranch in San Patricio, in southern New Mexico near Roswell, New Mexico. Wyeth's father was not happy about the move because, as she stated in a 1989 interview, “He felt I should not let marriage interfere with my painting.” Henriette Wyeth, however, did continue to paint for the rest of her life, until health problems prevented her from doing so.
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