Southwest art is as unique to the Southwest as the land, the people, and the culture.
This art captures the rich history and preserves the lifestyle and culture of the Southwest. Heavily influenced by Native American art and lifestyles of the past, this genre is also influenced by old-world Spanish tradition.
The influence of Spanish tradition is seen in sculpture, furniture, and textiles throughout the southwest region. Their depictions of religious figures, often saints or the virgin mother, remain symbols of Hispanic heritage and culture today. One example of early Spanish furniture is a large chest housed in study room 154 of the Artesia Public Library.
Today’s contemporary Southwest art still relies heavily on the Southwest region’s historic culture, using the influences of native American art and figures such as the Kokopelli, kachina dolls, thunderbirds, and other symbols that go as far back as the art on the walls of the cave dwellings of early native American Indians. Early New Mexico tribes such as Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni have long played a role in this art as well. Their pottery, textiles, sculpture, and jewelry remain recognized symbols of Southwest art.
With paintings largely representing the native culture and landscapes of this region, much Southwest art points toward the preservation and encompassment of the land, people, and culture of the Southwest. This preservation and conservation of the land was of utmost importance to artist Peter Hurd. The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare for It, the mural painted by Peter Hurd and displayed at the Artesia Public Library, epitomizes the heart of Southwest art.
While visiting the Hurd La Rinconada Gallery in San Patricio, I was fortunate enough to sit down with Peter and Henriette Hurd’s youngest son, Michael Hurd, to explore the history of the Sentinel Ranch. According to Michael Hurd, the preservation of the land and culture was vitally important to his father. Michael Hurd continues the legacy left to him by preserving the land and its people through conservation efforts at the Sentinel Ranch and through his art.
Michael Hurd traveled, studied, and lived all over the United States, but in the mid-1980s, he decided that the quiet life of the southwest was better suited to him and thus returned to his home on the Sentinel Ranch. Upon his return, Michael Hurd studied art with much help and guidance from his mother. He built the building that houses the Hurd La Rinconada Gallery and gathered much of his family’s art to display and sell from this gallery which now showcases five generations of artists.
Throughout his life, Peter Hurd studied at the New Mexico Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point and worked as a war correspondent in World War II. He studied under H.C. Wyeth and married Wyeth’s daughter, Henriette. Peter Hurd returned to New Mexico, settling in San Patricio, the place where he and Henriette Hurd called home and raised their family. Peter Hurd’s work often represented the land, culture, and lifestyles of the people and ranches that surrounded Sentinel Ranch in San Patricio, New Mexico.
Peter Hurd was commissioned for many great works of art during his lifetime, including murals, frescos, and portraits. When commissioned by Kenneth Franzheim, the architect of the Prudential Building in Houston, Texas, where the mural The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare for It would be painted, he wrote a letter to Franzheim stating that the design would be “sweeps of landscape, timeless in their forms and yet alive with the activities of man at work improving and developing its natural resources for the present and the future.”
While Michael Hurd’s art encompasses a variety of subjects, much of it captures the lands of the southwest, particularly southeast New Mexico where he continues to preserve and conserve the area that has become his family’s legacy. His landscapes of the land lying just west of the Hondo Valley that he calls home, capture not only the beauty of the land but also its significance to the Southwestern artistic world.
Southwest art represents the history of the land, the culture, and the people so we can preserve our past while looking toward our future. The saying really is true: the future belongs to those who prepare for it.
Wendy Kilpatrick
I am the Adult Services Librarian for the Artesia Public Library. I have been with the Library for 12 years and I love my job and all things library related. I live in Artesia with my husband and our German Shepherd Dog, Izzy. In my spare time (what’s that?) I read everything I can get my hands on. I love to craft. My husband and I love to visit the beach every chance we get.
