::FEATURE ARTICLES::

Transcendence & Reflection

By Elmo Baca

At twilight on warm September evenings in southern New Mexico’s Hondo valley, starlings and meadowlarks flutter about Henriette’s garden. From the gentle hillsides of Peter Hurd’s Sentinel Ranch, red tile roofs and pink plaster walls peek-a-boo between the cottonwoods, poplars, tamarisk, peach trees, box elders, and palm trees. The treetops trace a lacy silhouette against the unblemished sky as the Prussian blue of sunset begins to saturate the valley.

This hidden enclave of verdant inspiration and tranquility just north and east of Ruidoso is joined by an invisible yet palpable memory to the Wyeth landscapes of the Brandywine River valley in Pennsylvania. The ranch hacienda was just a two-room house when Henriette Wyeth first saw it in 1937 or 1938; the stout adobe walls were a legacy of the Maes family that built it in the 1850s.

Born in Roswell in 1904, Peter Hurd distinguished himself in the ranks of cadets at New Mexico Military Institute and later at West Point. At NMMI, Hurd and author Paul Horgan kindled a friendship, which lasted a lifetime. Later, Horgan would marvel at Hurd’s ability to “reveal landscapes with the eye of a bird,” and the author savored the luminous qualities of Hurd’s egg tempera paintings, which seemed to glow from within.

Hurd knew his destiny and traveled to Pennsylvania by train in the late 1920s to seek out N.C. Wyeth, then America’s most successful illustrator. Wyeth had gained fame and fortune for his unforgettable paintings of scenes for classic tales such as Treasure Island and Last of the Mohicans. Nearing Wyeth’s Chadds Ford home, Hurd asked the train conductor how to get there. “You might ask the young lady sitting next to you. She’s his daughter!” the conductor laughed.

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Henriette Wyeth shared the Sentinel Ranch with her husband and fellow painter, Peter Hurd.