Sentinel Ranch

In May 1934, when Peter Hurd wrote to his wife, Henriette, who was back East in Chadds Ford, about the land he had purchased for them in San Patricio, New Mexico, he included several drawings of the property, probably not unlike this small watercolor study. By that August, he had made his first lithographs of the ranch. Over the years the family added to the original small nineteenth-century adobe house, building studios for Peter and for Henriette, expanding the barn, constructing guest houses, and even adding a polo field to the ranch. They lived on the property, which eventually spanned more than 2000 acres, for the remainder of their lives.