Grace Carpenter Hudson

Grace Carpenter Hudson was an American artist specializing in American Indian paintings of the Pomo people. Born in Potter Valley, California in 1865, Hudson showed an aptitude for drawing at a young age. She received a formal education at the San Francisco School of Design in the 1880s. She returned home to her parents in Ukiah, California and gave painting lessons and helped with her family’s photography studio. In 1890, she married John Hudson, who encouraged her to paint the local Pomo natives which began her career as a nationally known portraiture artist.

Throughout her life, her paintings focused greatly on the native Pomo Indians, creating a soft and sympathetic view of these proud people. She traveled a bit later, expanding her subject matter to portraitures of the native Hawaiians, Chinese and Japanese people of Hawaii in 1901 and later of the Pawnee Indians in the Oklahoma Territory in 1903-04. By her death in 1937, Grace Carpenter Hudson created over 680 portraits in addition to her other watercolors, illustrations, and charcoals.