Peter Hurd

Peter Hurd (1904–1984) was a New Mexico painter and illustrator whose luminous egg tempera paintings of the Hondo Valley and the Ruidoso country of southeastern New Mexico have defined the visual identity of that landscape for generations of admirers. Born in Roswell, New Mexico, he studied at West Point before following his artistic ambitions to the Pennsylvania Academy and then to the studio of N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania — where he met and married the painter Henriette Wyeth, daughter of N.C. and sister of Andrew Wyeth. The Wyeth connection shaped Hurd's technique and his understanding of egg tempera — the medium that the elder Wyeth championed and that Hurd would make entirely his own in the New Mexico landscape. His paintings of the rolling grasslands of Lincoln County, the adobe villages of the Hondo Valley, and the daily life of the ranchers and farm workers who populated the region have a clarity and luminosity that is specific to tempera, and a sense of place that could only have come from decades of devoted looking at a particular landscape. He was commissioned by Life magazine to paint President Lyndon Johnson's official portrait — a commission that ended awkwardly when Johnson famously called the portrait "the ugliest thing I ever saw," generating national headlines and considerable amusement. The incident did nothing to diminish Hurd's reputation in New Mexico, where he remained a beloved figure until his death. His paintings are held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts New Mexico in Santa Fe, the Roswell Museum and Art Center, and major private collections throughout the Southwest. His home and studio in San Patricio, New Mexico, operated for years as a working studio and remains an important site in New Mexico art history.