Grace Hudson
Encyclopedia
She was nationally known during her lifetime for a numbered series of more than 684 portraits of the local Pomo
Pomo people
The Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
Indians. She painted the first, "National Thorn", after her marriage in 1891, and the last in 1935.
Early life
Grace Carpenter was born in Potter Valley, CaliforniaPotter Valley, California
Potter Valley is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located north-northeast of Ukiah, at an elevation of 948 feet . It is located at the headwaters of the East Fork of the Russian River...
. Her mother was one of the first white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
school teachers educating Pomo children and was a commercial portrait photographer in Ukiah, California
Ukiah, California
The average high temperature is 73.5 °F . Average low temperature is 46.1 °F . Temperatures reach 90 °F on an average of 65.6 days annually and 100 °F on an average of 14.4 days annually. Due to frequent low humidity, summer temperatures normally drop into the fifties at night. Freezing...
; her father was a skilled panoramic and landscape photographer who chronicled early Mendocino County frontier enterprises such as logging, shipping and railroading. At fourteen years of age, Grace was sent to attend the recently-established San Francisco School of Design
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
, an art school which emphasized painting from nature rather than from memory or by copying existing works. At sixteen, she executed an award-winning, full length, life sized self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
in crayon. While in San Francisco, she met and eloped with a man fifteen years her senior named William Davis, upsetting her parents and ending her formal studies. The marriage lasted only a year.
From 1885 to 1890, Grace Carpenter Davis lived with her parents in Ukiah painting, teaching and rendering illustrations for magazines such as Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
and Overland Monthly
Overland Monthly
Overland Monthly was a monthly magazine based in California, United States, and published in the 19th and 20th century.The magazine's first issue was in July 1868, and continued until the late 1875. The original publishers, in 1880, started The Californian, which became The Californian and Overland...
. Her work at that time had no particular focus and included genre, landscapes, portraits and still lifes in all media. Later in her career she would continue to accept occasional magazine illustration assignments including ones for Sunset
Sunset (magazine)
Sunset is a lifestyle magazine in the United States. Sunset focuses on homes, cooking, gardening, and travel, with a focus almost exclusively on the Western United States...
.
Marriage to John Hudson
In 1890, Grace married John Wilz Napier Hudson, M.D. (1857-1936) who had come to California from Nashville, TennesseeNashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
in 1889 to serve as physician for the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad
San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad
San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad provided the first extensive standard gauge rail service to Sonoma County and became the southern end of the regional Northwestern Pacific Railroad...
. The newlyweds shared a keen interest in preserving and recording Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
culture.
Professional success
Grace Carpenter Hudson painted "National Thorn" in 1891; it was selected to be shown at the Minneapolis Art Association exhibit where it proved very popular. Her painting "Little Mendocino", another Pomo infant portrait, got much attention at the Chicago World's FairWorld's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
, where it earned honorable mention in 1893. In 1894, "Little Mendocino" was hung at the Midwinter Fair
California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894
The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, commonly referred to as the "Midwinter Exposition" or the "Midwinter Fair", was a World's Fair that operated from January 27 to July 5 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. In 1892, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison appointed M. H...
in San Francisco, yielding further commissions for works in a similar vein.
By 1895, Grace's growing success as a popular artist was bringing in more than enough money for the couple to live in modest comfort. John Hudson gave up his medical practice in order to study the Pomo people and follow his deep interests in archeology and ethnography. His collection of California Indian baskets and other Native American artifacts can be found in the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
in Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
and the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, whose research collection is based on his manuscripts and correspondence.
Grace meticulously photographed and documented each of her works from this time forward; she was concerned with the proliferation of counterfeit copies being produced. Her notes were intended to establish her copyright. Each of her works are numbered in sequence. She often used the camera as the initial basis for her oil portraits, as it allowed the human subject to be captured quickly. She took pains to conceal this practical convenience from the art world as it was considered an inferior method at the time.
In 1900-1901, Grace Hudson had become exhausted from supplying the demand for her popular paintings; she took a solo vacation in the Territory of Hawaii
Territory of Hawaii
The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 7, 1898, until August 21, 1959, when its territory, with the exception of Johnston Atoll, was admitted to the Union as the fiftieth U.S. state, the State of Hawaii.The U.S...
, relaxing and refreshing herself. While there, she completed 26 paintings of Island scenes and Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian people. While Grace was away, John Hudson became the Pacific Coast
Pacific Coast
A country's Pacific coast is the part of its coast bordering the Pacific Ocean.-The Americas:Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western border.* Geography of Canada* Geography of Chile* Geography of Colombia...
ethnologist for the Field Columbian Museum
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
, documenting Northern California native activities including an extensive study of aboriginal fish trapping methods.
Returning to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Grace rejoined her husband and resumed work supplying sentimental Pomo portraits to eager buyers as well as accompanying John on much of his field work. In 1902, she painted a portrait of a Pawnee boy; John Hudson had been working to document the Pawnee on assignment for the Field Columbian Museum. In 1904, Grace Hudson accepted a commission from the Field Columbian Museum to take up residence in the Oklahoma Territory
Oklahoma Territory
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as the State of Oklahoma.-Organization:Oklahoma Territory's...
and paint further images of the remaining Pawnee, a people who had been nearly wiped out by contact with Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an diseases. There she preserved primarily chiefs and elders on canvas and photographic negative. While in Oklahoma, some of the Hudson's collected artifacts and Grace's paintings were destroyed in San Francisco's calamitous fire following the 1906 earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
.
Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House
Ukiah, California
The average high temperature is 73.5 °F . Average low temperature is 46.1 °F . Temperatures reach 90 °F on an average of 65.6 days annually and 100 °F on an average of 14.4 days annually. Due to frequent low humidity, summer temperatures normally drop into the fifties at night. Freezing...
, a Craftsman
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...
-style California bungalow
California Bungalow
California bungalows, known as Californian bungalows in Australia and are commonly called simply bungalows in America, are a form of residential structure that were widely popular across America and, to some extent, the world around the years 1910 to 1939.-Exterior features:Bungalows are 1 or 1½...
they designed and had built of redwood in 1911. The Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
sun symbol was adopted by the Hudsons as their family symbol; the Sun House displays the emblem prominently over the door. John Hudson died there in 1936.
With no children of her own, Grace Hudson left The Sun House and its land to her nephew, Mark Carpenter. Carpenter preserved the house and its 30,000 collected objects for posterity, giving it to the City of Ukiah which operates the house and the adjoining Grace Hudson Museum. Today, the Sun House is California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmarks are buildings, structures, sites, or places in the state of California that have been determined to have statewide historical significance by meeting at least one of the criteria listed below:...
#926, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The Sun House and Museum are within the 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) Hudson-Carpenter city park. The museum's website says of Grace Hudson that "...her work enjoys renewed interest and recognition for its fine and sympathetic portrayals of native peoples."
External links
- Grace Hudson Museum - official site
- City of Ukiah: Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House