Magical & Real: Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd, A Retrospective
No family name is more closely associated with 20th century American art than Wyeth: the names N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth spark universal recognition. Henriette Wyeth—daughter, sister, and aunt, respectively—is less known, but no less remarkable. Co-organized by the Michener Art Museum and Roswell Museum and Arts Center, Magical & Real is a major retrospective that explores Wyeth’s career with paintings dating from the 1920s to the 1970s, and also examines the work and career of her husband, Peter Hurd. Featuring over 100 works, the exhibition reveals the trajectories of husband-and-wife artists, illuminates the influences of culture and region, and re-situates two forceful creators into the larger dialogue of American art.
Peter Hurd (1904-1984) and Henriette Wyeth (1907-1997) were important contributors to the arts of both the Philadelphia region and the Southwest. Peter Hurd, a native of Roswell, attended Haverford College, near Philadelphia and later studied with N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford. While there, he met Wyeth’s eldest daughter, Henriette, a talented painter whose lyrical large scale canvases had quickly earned her critical recognition following her graduation from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The two were married in 1929, and—torn by ties to both the east coast and the southwest—relocated permanently to New Mexico in 1940. There, both artists were rebranded as Regionalists, a characterization that marginalized their respective contributions to American art.
Magical & Real is the first joint retrospective of Wyeth and Hurd’s work since 1967, and the first scholarly exhibition to seriously consider the work of either artist in thirty years. The exhibition will introduce audiences familiar only with the name Wyeth to the significant body of work produced by the woman that Andrew Wyeth felt was the most talented of all N.C. Wyeth’s children.
Accompanied by a richly illustrated scholarly catalogue with essays by Jensen and Woodbury, Magical & Real will include approximately 100 works.
Somerville Manning Gallery is a proud sponsor of this exhibition
