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Henriette Wyeth's "Swan Feather With Seashells" is part
of an exhibit in Santa Fe, N.M., "Wyeth's Women." The painting
was donated to the Wyeth Hurd Gallery by Honolulu collectors
Susan and Roy Cummings, longtime admirers of the artist's work.

Honolulu collectors help promote
the vibrant works of the
famed artist's sister

By Nadine Kam
Star-Bulletin

IN life, Henriette Wyeth was overshadowed by her male relatives, including illustrator dad N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth, her famous brother Andrew Wyeth whose painting "Christina's World" hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and her husband Peter Hurd, perhaps best known for a portrait of Lyndon Johnson that was rejected by the president and now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.

Now, three years after her death, Henriette's work is beginning to be recognized by the art community, but one local couple, Roy and Susan "Suzie" Cummings, have been fans of the artist since getting to know her in the '60s.

Henriette Wyeth's oil "Adolescence."

One of Henriette's works that they've owned for 40 years, "Swan Feather With Seashells," is among the pieces being displayed in an exhibition, "Wyeth Women," on view at the Wyeth Hurd Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., through June 25.

The show is part of a Santa Fe celebration of "American Women Artists" and for the occasion, "We're putting the men in the back office, kicking them downstairs," Henriette's grandson, Peter de la Fuente, told a writer for The Associated Press in New Mexico.

The Cummings had shipped "Swan Feather" and a portrait of Suzie off to the Wyeth Hurd Gallery earlier because they felt they would be better tended in a gallery or museum, away from Hawaii's humidity and salt air, and what better place than among family? The gallery houses works by Henriette's father, brother, sisters Ann Wyeth McCoy and Carolyn Wyeth, daughter Carol Hurd and niece Anna B. McCoy.

Roy and Suzie had met and fallen in love while working at the Star-Bulletin in the late '50s. They started dating after discovering they both hailed from St. Louis, Mo., even though he's 20 years her senior.

By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
About 40 years ago, Susan Cummings posed for Henriette
Wyeth. The artist then presented her with this
portrait as a wedding gift.

Then Roy had a dream of changing his life by building an adobe home in the desert. They followed a friend, artist and aloha shirt designer John Meigs, to San Patricio, N.M., which -- 250 miles southeast of Albuquerque -- was far from the artist enclaves of Taos and Santa Fe.

When Suzie met Henriette, the artist asked her if she would sit for a portrait.

Suzie was flattered and said she would never have thought to have her portrait done. "That would have been conceited," she said.

The Cummings always thought they would buy the finished work from Henriette, and were surprised when she gave it to them as a wedding gift.

"I asked later, why she wanted to paint me," said Suzie. "She said, 'I just wanted to get to know you.'

"I was young then, only 25, and I was the newest person in town. It was such a small town -- less than a 100 people, and maybe only that if you counted the cows and chickens -- so when you had a guest, everyone entertained them, everyone had to meet them."

Museum of New Mexico
Henriette Wyeth with her painting, "Adolescence," in 1928.
As an artist, Wyeth always lived in the shadows of her
more famous father, brother and husband.

At the time, the Cummings purchased "Swan Feather" for $500, representing a friend discount of $1,000. Suzie said that if Henriette knew of her popularity today, she would be overjoyed and astounded by the prices her works command.

According to Karen Rogers, de la Fuente's wife and gallery co-owner, Henriette's works fetch $45,000 to $130,000. "Her work is always well-received. Of the five Wyeth women, she's the best known," Rogers said. "Her works are particularly popular among Western collectors."

"But she didn't expect anything," said Suzie. "That was the way things were then. I think women are more aggressive today and they wouldn't stand for it.

"It was a shame because she was a wonderful artist, but the women always took a back seat and that's the way she wanted it.

"I think it gave her the freedom to paint what she wanted to paint."

What she wanted to paint were people, doing portraits for people such as Helen Hayes, Patricia Nixon and the Pulitzer Award-winning writer Paul Horgan.

She also created still lifes with a mystical, somewhat Impressionistic quality.

"She was always a wife first, and a mother, but very disciplined in her painting, because she never let anything interfere with her morning's painting," Suzie said.

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