Southwest |
The Southwest has a persuasive "spirit of place," often described as enchanted, magical, or spiritual, that is distinctive from other regions of the West.
Soon after the U.S. military claimed New Mexico in 1846, artists began to explore and document this newly "discovered", yet ancient land. They found Native artists creating fine textiles, jewelry, ceramics, wood carvings, and paintings, usually Catholic-inspired santos or Pueblo murals.
In the 1890s, Taos, New Mexico emerged as an artist's colony, later called the Taos Society of Artists. They attracted artists to the stunning landscapes and exotic natives. |
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Carlos Vierra
Carlos Vierra
1920
Oil on board, 15 3/4" x 19 7/8"
Carlos Vierra arrived in Santa Fe in 1904 and was the first artist to make it his permanent home. Vierra loved adobe architecture and was one of the principal designers of "Santa Fe style," a unique blend of Spanish and Pueblo Indian design. It was chosen for Santa Fe's Fine Arts Museum, perhaps the finest example of Santa Fe style in existence.
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Nicolai Fechin
Sorrento Valley
1925
Oil on canvas, 34 1/2" x 40 1/2"
"After spending six years in the Taos art colony, Russian-born artist Nicolai Fechin left in 1933 to live in California, "The end of the Far West." In California he left behind the bright, saturated palette he had preferred in Taos to express the softer mood of the southern California coast, which he painted in the impressionist Sorrento Valley."
Campbell, Suzan and Kathleen Ash-Milby. The American West: People, Places and Ideas. Santa Fe, NM: Western Edge Press, 2001.
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Thomas Morran
Clouds in the Canyon
1915
20 1/4" x 25 1/8"
The future of American art lies in being true to our own country... My chief desire is to call the attention of American landscape painters to... this enchanting southwestern country; a country flooded with color and picturesqueness, offering everything to inspire the artist.
-- Thomas Moran, in The Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1909.
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B. J. O. Nordfeldt
Shepard, Cerrillos, New Mexico
date unknown
etching on paper 6 3/8" x 9 1/8"
B. J. O. Nordfeldt was born in Sweden and immigrated to Chicago in 1891. After studying art for a decade in Chicago and Europe, he moved to Santa Fe in 1919, where he remained for the next twenty years. The influence of Cezanne and the Fauves is reflected in his landscapes and portraits.
Campbell, Suzan and Kathleen Ash-Milby. The American West: People, Places and Ideas. Santa Fe, NM: Western Edge Press, 2001.
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Artist Unknown
Rug
1965-1970
Commercial and handspun wool yarns, natural colors and aniline dye, 22 1/2" x 33 3/4"
Masterful use of design and abstraction is indicative of both historic and contemporary Native American art. Today we know the importance of collecting Native American objects as art rather than as curiosities. The significance of these objects is reflected both in the early works of the Taos Society of Artists and in contemporary Native American artwork.
Campbell, Suzan and Kathleen Ash-Milby. The American West: People, Places and Ideas. Santa Fe, NM: Western Edge Press, 2001, pp.107-12; 125-29.
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E. Martin Hennings
The Teacher
1925
Oil on canvas, 15 1/2" x 19 1/4"
New Mexico has almost made a landscape painter out of me, although I believe my strongest work is in figures... In figure subjects I think I find my greatest inspiration.
-- E. Martin Hennings, in Bickerstaff, Pioneer Artists of Taos.
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Ernest Blumenschein
Jury for Trial of A Sheepherder for Murder
1936
Oil on canvas, 46" x 30"
Taos artist Ernest Blumenschein thought this was his "finest and most successful" painting. It reveals his compassion for the Hispanic jurors. They were caught between their own customs and American laws that were strange to them as they decided whether a fellow sheepherder was guilty or innocent.
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Harold Joe Waldrum
La Iglesia de San Ildefonso
1985
Acrylic on canvas, 54" x 54"
Any man who is really an artist will find the Southwest... a region where the ingenuity, the imagination, and love of God are... visible at every turn... It is high time for the artists to come upon the Southwest.
-- Charles F. Jummis, "The Artists Paradise," in Out West, 1908.
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William Herbert "Buck" Dunton
Deer Hunters' Camp
1926
Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"
Buck Dunton was encouraged to visit Taos, New Mexico by his teacher, Ernest Blumenschein, after Blumenschein had formed an artist colony there. Apparently moved by the experience, Dunton, along with Blumenshcein, became a founding artist of the Taos Artist Society. Dunton painted Anglo frontiersmen and pioneers.
Campbell, Suzan and Kathleen Ash-Milby. The American West: People, Places and Ideas. Santa Fe, NM: Western Edge Press, 2001, pp.141.
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Howard Cook
Snow and 'Dobe
1926
Linocut on paper 11 3/4" x 9 1/4"
The atmosphere of the Southwest is perhaps the hardest in the world for artists to catch. It is so subtle, so magical, so mixed with witchcraft, that it fools the sharpest eye and laughs at the cleverest palette.
-- Charles F. Lummis, "The Artist's Paradise," Out West, September 1908
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