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Hudson, Grace (1865 - 1937)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:20,000.00 USD Estimated At:20,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
Hudson, Grace (1865 - 1937)
<strong>Hudson, Grace </strong>
(1865 - 1937)

<strong>Little Piper, 1895</strong>

oil on canvas mounted on board
10 x 6 inches
signed and dated lower center: <i>G Hudson '95 </i>
signed and numbered on verso: <i>Grace Hudson / Ukiah / Cal / 34-</i>

“The Painter Lady,” as Grace Carpenter Hudson was fondly named by the Pomo Indians, whom
she befriended and depicted extensively, was born near Ukiah, California in 1865. At the early age
of 14 she left home to study art at the California School of Design in San Francisco. Almost immediately she was recognized for her artwork and in the subsequent year of her enrollment was awarded the Alvord Gold Medal for a full-length study in crayon. In 1884, upon completion of her studies, she returned to her hometown and began teaching painting.

By 1889, she had matured considerably as a woman and as an artist. That same year she met
John Hudson, a doctor who had dropped his medical practice and begun ethnographic research for the Field Museum. Their interests coalesced around the Pomo Indians. Both the artist and the
ethnographer worked closely together to portray this vanishing race. For Hudson the subject
became what she was to be forever recognized for as an artist. Her sensitive depictions of the
Pomo Indian children, as in <i>Little Piper</i> show an intimacy that was only achieved through her long-term relationship with these private people. She had gained their trust and was able to create many special paintings of the young members. In 1904, the Field Museum commissioned Hudson to paint portraits of the elders and chiefs of the tribe. Over the span of her career she catalogued and numbered her paintings to a count of over 680 pieces. She has made an extra-ordinary contribution to Western art and American history.—PR


Provenance:
Private Collection, Wyoming

Literature:
<i>The Painter Lady, Grace Carpenter Hudson,</i> Searles R. Boynton D.D.S., Interface
California Corp., Ureka, California. 1978, Illus. on page 158.