Henriette Wyeth

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 at their home and studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She is considered one of the great female painters of the 20th century. Her subjects included actress Helen Hays, writer Paul Horgan, and First Lady Pat Nixon.

At age eleven, she began art study, although polio crippled her right hand. She learned a technique of holding the brush between her first and second fingers and was an accomplished portraitist even as a teenager.

She later shocked her family by marrying artist Peter Hurd, also a student of her father's, and moving to southern New Mexico in the mid-1930s and raised their three children on a ranch there. She loved the landscape and simple architecture and created a rich life for herself and her husband in an area that many regarded as totally barren. She continued her painting, and the Wyeth-Hurd home, which grew to a 2200-acre ranch, became a mecca for many famous people who sat for portraits, played polo, and simply enjoyed the company of their hosts.

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."

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