Born in remote Roswell, New Mexico, Peter Hurd established his home at Sentinel Ranch, in nearby San Patricio, by 1940 and devoted himself to painting the area's distinctive landscape. Hurd had been experimenting with the medium seen here—egg tempera (an egg-based, water-soluble paint mixture) applied to gesso-coated panels—since the early 1930s. Derived from Italian Renaissance practice, the method allowed him to achieve a brilliancy of color and "flatness" that he believed were otherwise attainable only with watercolors.
