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06.21.10 | Jeff Ham New Works
Posted 11:50pm by Legends Santa Fe
Jeff Ham has been in the gallery doing a painting demo for the last 2 days. The work is a must see as it is a highly skilled and controlled explosion of color!! Check out work from his show on our Artist page.
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05.28.10 | Kevin Red Star Receives Honorary Doctorate from IAIA
Posted 5:12pm by Legends Santa Fe
We were invited to the 2010 IAIA graduation ceremony by Kevin Red Star where he received an honorary doctorate this May. What an amazing ceremony!! I highly recommend attending a commencement ceremony at IAIA if you have not done so. Drumming, Singing, Shared Words and Wishes, it was all quite profound and very uplifting. Congratulations Kevin!!
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04.20.10 | Matt Flint in Western Art & Architecture Ones To Watch!
Posted 4:55pm by Legends Santa Fe
Matt Flint translates the natural world through the use of layers, glyphs,scratched surfaces and repeated patterns. Powerfully emotional, Flint upends the transient humanistic experience into a rooted yet subtle tether to the land. By intuitively following the process Flint allows the viewer to absorb each facet of the piece while taking in cryptic details and partially concealed images.
Through his use of gouging and scraping Flint effectively isolates and engages. Each piece tells a story, although the narrative seems to come across as more of a dream, a remembered encounter rather than unraveled fiction. His work has appeared in several solo exhibits including a show at Central College, Pella, Iowa; the Stewart Gallery, Boise, Idaho; the Memorial Hall Main Gallery, Chadron State College, Chadron, Nebraska; and the Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
In 2010 Flint’s work is included in several group exhibits including the Elements of Abstraction at Gallery MAR, Park City, Utah; and the Tokyo to Wyoming, Western Wyoming College, Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Flint’s work is collected both publicly and privately by the Audax Theatre Group, New York, New York; The Scott Opler Foundation, St. Petersburg, Florida; The Nicolaysen Museum of Art, Casper, Wyoming; The Wyoming State Museum, Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Spink Butler LLC, Boise, Idaho, among others.
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03.11.10 | Jeff Ham. New Work.
Posted 6:10pm by Legends Santa Fe
Legends is pleased to announce New Works from Jeff Ham.
Raw, bright, explosive colors are used to evoke emotion and draw attention to the subjects Jeff paints. “In my paintings everything becomes an iconic image, no setting or backgrounds. I paint what I love, people, animals and landscapes. I do my best to translate emotion and feelings into color as well as communicate my individual interpretation of each subject. The work is done quickly and in the moment to capture spontaneity and avoid over thinking and over working. As an artist I am at a genesis of learning to express myself in an honest and straightforward manner.”
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01.16.10 | Native American Pottery Syles: Pueblos
Posted 7:59pm by Legends Santa Fe
Pueblo pottery of the Southwest is among the purest of North American Indian art forms-that is to say, its execution and design have gone virtually unchanged for generations. Of course, innovations, technical advances, and minor deviations in style and design have always produced vessels outside the norm of the day. And today more than ever, artists are creating works that reflect an abundance of new and rich influences. But for the most part, Southwestern pottery has not been fundamentally altered by foreign or exterior elements.
Following is a brief overview of the various types of pottery being produced within the pueblos scattered throughout New Mexico.
Acoma, Cochiti, Laguna, Santo Domingo,
Santa Ana and Zia PotteryThese pueblos, the Keres-speaking villages, are known predominantly for their white or buff-slipped vessels with black and brick-colored motifs, usually with a reddish-brown base. Black and white fine-line pots, storytellers and animal figurines such as the cow, owl, deer, and bird are also made here.Other typical design elements include rain, lightning, clouds, humans, animals, cross-hatching, and geometrics. At Santo Domingo, large pots painted with flowers, leaves and animals are also popular, and many of the larger vessels often have lids or rims. Among the southern pueblos, there is an abundant use of the Zia bird, the Zuni deer with heartline, and the rainbow band. One may also discover an occasional plate, canteen, or flat tile-like piece, but the larger earth-toned pieces are by far the most popular.
Nambe, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, San Juan,
Santa Clara and Tesuque PotteryThe Tewa-speaking pueblos, renowned for their award-winning potters, are best known for their black or red polished jars, vases, and bowls. Carved, etched, or painted black and red wares, still made by traditional methods, often take the forms of wedding vases, water and storage jars, friendship baskets, plates, bowls, mudhead clowns, animal figurines, candle holders, and even nativities. Popular designs among the Tewa include the bear paw, water serpent, kiva steps, clouds, feathers, and stylized parrots. Some San Juan potters make polished red and polychrome wares with incised lines and geometric patterns. Sgraffito (ornamentation etched after firing) miniatures are also commonly seen among Tewa artists, and a few potters work exclusively with micaceous clay, crafting large jars and pots and wide flattish bowls.
Isleta, Picuris and Taos Pottery
The Tiwa-speaking pueblos primarily produce micaceous wares with relief bands and designs, often with handles and lids. Large jars and pots are common, as are figurines depicting animals, people, nativities and storytellers. These artists also produce undecorated pottery, as well as pottery with a white slip, painted brown and orange designs, and even pastels.
Jemez Pottery
Jemez is the last remaining Towa-speaking village whose potters typically create buff or red-slipped wares with buff, white, red, or black designs. The most common design elements include clouds and lightning and geometric lines and symbols. Storytellers, clowns, and animal figurines are also produced at Jemez.
Hopi Pottery
Generally, Hopi pottery is characterized by its warm, amber-colored slip and polychrome designs, though it may also be seen with white- or buff-slipped bases and black and red designs. Also being produced is polished redware, either left plain or decorated with black or white painted designs. Traditional styles include tall, slender vases, wide, shallow bowls and small to medium round pots. Stylized birds, kiva steps, and rain symbols are among the most popular design motifs.
Zuni Pottery
Zuni potters produce a large body of bowls and jars with brownish-black and red designs on white or buff slip, plus a few wares with black-on-red decorations. Popular Zuni designs include the rain bird, plant and animal forms, crosshatching, and the deer with red heartline. Owl effigies are common, as is the practice of adding clay relief figures such as the water serpent and duck to the outer surfaces of the vessel.
Borrowing and TradingThe borrowing, trading and adopting of artistic techniques, styles and designs is nothing new to the tribes of North America. There has always been an interchange of artistic resources among indigenous peoples, and exterior influences often became incorporated into an otherwise “traditional,” untainted art form.
Today there are more innovations in pottery than ever before. This strong and steady influx of new styles and designs is pushing pottery into previously unexplored territories. Forerunners on this generational journey include Robert Tenorio’s (Santo Domingo) variations of the storage jar, Russell Sanchez’s (San Ildefonso) bejeweled vessels, and the painted creations of Julian Martinez (San Ildefonso), who borrowed heavily from Hopi influences to adorn his wife Maria’s famous plates and bowls. But the recent movement is unprecedented. Potters
especially the younger onesare challenging the notion of traditionalism as never before.Dozens of artists today are using the designs and techniques of other tribes. Cochiti potters are producing wares once more typical of the Tewa pueblos
such as wedding vases and jarsand decorating them with traditional Tewa and Hopi pictorials, serpents and feather designs, and stylized birds and wings. Laguna and Acoma potters are incorporating many of these motifs in their work as well, sometimes slipping their vessels with amber or white pigments much like those of Hopi artist.The Tewa pueblos are producing many clay works containing outside tribal influences. Hopi designs have always been popular among Santa Clara potters, who also adapted several design techniques
including the black-on-black decorating stylesfrom their San Ildefonso neighbors. Tewa villages farther south are home to several potters whose work suggests a Tiwa influence, specifically from the micaceous vessels common to Picuris & Isleta.
InnovationsEntering the 21st century, pottery is changing even more markedly. Artists are not only looking to other tribes for design resources, they are looking everywhere. Within their own traditions, they are incorporating designs such as dancers and kachina-like figures that have never been used before. Some potters are adding elements of newly adopted faiths, while others even depict motorcycles, acrobats, giraffes, trout, dinosaurs, spiders, and irises on otherwise traditional forms. Diego Romero (Cochiti) paints his vessels with freeway scenes, overpasses, cars, traffic signs, even dialogue. And the young Folwells of Santa Clara have been creating works with Osage and Northwest Coast designs on brownish-black, burnished surfaces with somewhat abstracted shapes.
Miniatures, by no means a traditional category of pottery, are quite popular throughout many of the pueblos and are produced in nearly every shape and color.
These changes and adaptations in pottery design may have been long in arriving or may have gone overlooked. But in recent years, the changes are more evident. Today, it is clear that despite the ongoing “purity” of Southwestern pottery, prolific and talented artists are breaking all the rules. The crowded tables atop which these vessels sit on the eve of Indian Market judging is testimony to this fact- and to the ever-changing currents that give new vitality to this ancient and beautiful art form.
The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque – Volume 13 by Rosemary Diaz.
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01.16.10 | Contemporary Native American Art: Trends
Posted 6:55pm by Legends Santa Fe
Contemporary Native American crafts are growing in popularity. Soaring prices at Native American antique auctions put old pieces out of the reach of the majority of buyers. But more importantly, a growing number of collectors see the value of contemporary crafts such as weaving, bead work, silver work and pottery. These crafts simultaneously carry on centuries of tradition, reveal the evolution of the culture they represent, and express the individual touch of the artist.
To some observers, contemporary Indian crafts are seen as inferior imitations of the “great” Native American art of ages long past. But, as the ever-increasing number of tribal arts and crafts galleries across the country demonstrates, the native arts are alive and growing. There is a regeneration and revitalization of traditional art forms.
The same criteria should be applied to the art of the past and the art of today. The works of the Old Masters are not valued above work of modern artists merely for their age. The keys to the value of these art works are mastery of technique and the representation of a particular time period, ethos and individuality, the same qualities that exist in the work of the highest level of contemporary artists.
These identical criteria are what put the finest contemporary Native American arts on a par with the great antique Indian pieces in museum and private collections. If contemporary Native American crafts are judged on their own merits, without comparing them to the artifacts of the past, one finds vital and energetic art forms that can be appreciated for their own individual beauty as well as for their representation of time-honored traditions. New works make their own statements about centuries-old cultures. Contemporary Native crafts are not quaint examples of fading lifeways. They are art works that represent the very soul of the original American experience, an experience that has not died.
What elevates craft to art is the inclusion of part of the inner being of the maker. If an individual reproduces in exacting detail an existing museum piece, such as a Blackfoot war shirt, she is practicing a finely honed craft. If she adds a bit of herself and her modern experience to that shirt, it becomes her own expression and rises to the level of art. The highest echelons of contemporary Native American crafts are more than mere repetition of the old ways produced as souvenirs. They represent the spiritual values of a people, and provide a glimpse into the soul of a culture.
What separates much of Indian life from the majority of mass American culture is that Native Americans have managed to preserve more spirituality in day-to-day life even as they evolve with the modern world. For example, Pueblo dances are more than reenactments of ages-old rituals; they are modern ceremonies and celebrations that appeal to the same spiritual beings that have guided the native people of northern New Mexico for centuries. Through these ceremonies, the old ways are passed to the young, and the spiritual values that have kept their cultures viable are celebrated. In the same way, modern Native American pottery, bead work, basketry, carving and weaving are not just reproductions of ancient techniques. They have a place within contemporary culture as an expression of the soul and spirituality of Native American people.
In Native American arts, as in the fine arts arena, the marketplace dictates to some extent what an artist produces. The bulk of Navajo silver work and Pueblo pottery produced in the early twentieth century was made in response to a demand from tourists. But most Native American crafts people won’t produce a piece that runs completely contrary to the tradition of their particular tribe. These artist do not separate art from other phases of life. Art is part of the whole, an integral element of the grand scheme of life; tradition and spirituality naturally guide the production of their crafts.
Today’s Native American artists learn the traditional arts by watching their elders . . . and they add elements that work in the modern world without abandoning the soul of the past. In cultures where most information has been passed orally, traditions fluctuate as part of the great circle of life. There is room in Native American culture for flexibility while preserving the essence of tradition.
Some of that flexibility is evidenced in the materials used in arts and crafts. For centuries, Native Americans have traded with other tribes and adopted the use of materials not native to their culture. This practice continues today. Just as people have abandoned the use of ice houses and horses in favor of refrigerators and automobiles, a contemporary Indian artist might use commercial paints on commercially-tanned hides in place of earth paints on brain-tan. Availability of materials always plays a role. For some artists, new materials simply work better; for others, such as Pueblo potters, there is no replacement for the same materials that have been used for centuries.
What to look forAs in all art work, there are levels of skill that generally determine the value of a piece. A tighter weave in a blanket or more symmetrical shape in a pot will partially dictate price. The buyer should look for mastery of technique and the extent to which the piece reflects the tradition of the tribe of the artists, as well as how it represents the modern Native American experience. The wise collector looks for the young and up-and-coming along with those who have established themselves at the forefront of their fields. Younger artists are those who, for the most part, show innovation and incorporate new ideas in traditional art forms to reveal the vitality of contemporary Indian life.
The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe and Taos – Volume 8 by Susan Dawn.
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01.16.10 | Women's Work: Creating Beauty for the Plains Indians
Posted 6:35pm by Legends Santa Fe
“I was industrious when I was young. Seven robes I have worked with bird quills and two robes I have embroidered with porcupine work. I have also in my life time embroidered with porcupine quills seven buckskin coats; three of these coats were of deer skin and four of Rocky Mountain
sheep.”Buffalo Bird Woman (1839?–1932)
Our visual record of the old-time buffalo culture of the Indians of the Great Plains is largely composed of 19th century brown-tone photographs. These are informative, to be sure. They are also oddly quaint, and fundamentally flawed sources because a vital element is missing. Victorian technology, after all, cannot come close to conveying even a rudimentary impression of the vibrant and colorful hues that permeated the lives of Lakotas, Cheyennes and Arapahos, Pawnees, Kiowas, and Comanches. Today, many of those who look at examples of Plains Indian material culture in museums and galleries—the objects people used and the clothes they wore, basically the stuff of everyday life—are understandably impressed by an awesome display of artistic exuberance, nothing less than a thundering cascade of design and color.
Plains Indian languages did not actually contain words precisely equivalent to the English language term “art.” There was no such thing in those traditional cultures as the idea of “art for art’s sake.” The closest of the tribal terms that might apply would perhaps be “beauty.” And that was something about which Plains Indian folk knew a great deal. The Indians of the Great Plains looked at the world around them and beheld much that was beautiful. What they saw was the Great Circle, an exquisitely created, perfectly formed universe composed of diverse, elegantly designed parts.
The sun, moon and stars were part of this Great Circle. So, too, the sky and its swirling clouds. Towering mountains and rushing streams, leaf-laden trees and waving grasses contributed to the magnificent whole. Plains Indians were acutely aware that compared to the world surrounding them, and the animals among whom they lived—the members of the tribes of four-legged creatures and the nations of those that flew—human beings were relatively plain and not particularly beautiful. Without attractive fur or feathers decorated with exploding colors, humans seemed almost abnormally plain.
So Plains Indians attempted to place themselves more in sync with nature by filling the visual void. They did this by creating beauty. And this was, typically, the task of women. Among the Plains Indians the kind of tasks one performed each day, the types of activities in which people engaged, were all determined by one’s sex. Hunting and warfare were male activities. Gathering food—or, among those, like the Mandans and Hidatsas of North Dakota, who lived in more or less permanent villages along rivers, planting and harvesting corn—caring for children and creating the home environment fell to the women.
Whenever you look at an object that came from the Plains Indian tribes, consider this: If it was not intended for hunting, warfare, smoking, perhaps the making of music, it was probably made by a woman.
Every buckskin dress and shirt, every bead, each flattened and dyed porcupine quill; all of the pipebags, moccasins, leggings, and rawhide parfleche carrying cases—they were all made by the women.The role of women in Plains Indian tribes has long been both barely understood and inaccurately portrayed. Women were not the slaves, mindless drudges and poorly treated drones who populate so many novels and films. (Nor, for that matter, were they the equally fictional and stereotypical “Indian princesses” who grace many of the same venues).
In real life, Plains Indian women played vitally important roles in tribal societies. The Cheyennes, for example, could not even contemplate conducting the Sun Dance—their annual, early-summertime ritual celebrating the world’s rebirth after the stark Great Plains winter—without the presence of a woman who represented Mother Earth herself. But with the notable exception of today’s Plains Indian people, the crucial role of women in old-time Plains Indian life has been only poorly understood.
Perhaps this is because most of the anthropologists who started collecting information about Plains Indian tribes in the late-19th century were men. (After all, they came from a culture that as a matter of course consigned women to a “separate sphere” from males, and few of them ever expressed much interest in women’s lives.) It is, of course, also possible that Plains Indian women were not particularly anxious to talk with men from outside their own milieu.
What usually interested the outsiders who looked at Plains Indian culture was the warrior sitting astride a horse, an eagle feather warbonnet on his head, buffalo hide shield strapped to his left arm, and lance clasped firmly in his right hand. This image became the figure of enduring memory. Yet aside from his war gear, virtually everything a Plains Indian male owned was made by women, and it is they who left a powerful legacy in the works of art they created.
Some insight into the real significance of women’s roles in Plains Indian life can be gleaned from the recollections of Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa from North Dakota’s Upper Missouri River country. Consider, for example, the business of tanning the buffalo, elk, deer, antelope and bighorn sheep hides that were used to make tipis, clothing, pipebags, moccasins and myriad other objects.
“Scraping hides was hard work,” Buffalo Bird Woman recalled. And that was just the beginning. The raw hide was staked out on the ground and treated with a stew of sinew, brains and sage. It dried for several days before being soaked and scraped, soaked and scraped again. After that, it was rubbed with a stone for hours and worked over with a rawhide rope to soften the hide and regulate the texture and thickness. Then, and only then, was it ready to become a surface for geometric painting or the application of quillwork or beaded strips.
In her lifetime, Buffalo Bird Woman prepared literally hundreds of hides in this way. Because of this, she received what was known as “an honor mark.” As Buffalo Bird Woman explained in her old age, during reservation times: “My aunt Sage gave me such, a maipsukasa or woman’s belt. These were broad as a man’s suspender and worked in beads . . . . One could not purchase or make such a belt; it had to be given.”
This enduringly powerful legacy of skill and creativity is largely owed to the ladies. For it was the tribes’ women who were responsible for the existence of the overwhelming majority of Plains Indian art.
“I was industrious when I was young,” Buffalo Bird Woman once said. And not only industrious, but one of that legion of anonymous Plains Indian women whose legacy is the art through which their culture is remembered.
The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe, Taos
and Albuquerque- Volume 16 written by Dr. Ron McCoy. -
01.16.10 | Poetry of Pueblo Dances
Posted 6:24pm by Legends Santa Fe
Animals have always occupied a place of great reverence and importance within the cultures and lifeways of virtually every indigenous tribal entity within the Americas. Not only were animals depended upon for food and various other materials necessary for survival, they were included in, and sometimes were the focus of, elaborate ceremonial events. Thus, their importance was not limited to providing sustenance for the basic and fundamental realms of human existence, but extended into the very core of many tribal religious and spiritual philosophies and practices.
Although many tribes developed highly complex rituals of dance and ceremony with respect to specific animals, one must remember that the use of any animal in particular within any one tribe in particular can not be assumed a given; animal veneration is not a homogeneous practice and varies greatly from one tribe to another, perhaps in some cases not existing at all. For example, to the Tewa and Kiowa peoples, among others, the bear is of central significance in several important religious functions, but is excluded entirely from the ceremonial contexts of coexisting tribes. In customary Osage ideology the sighting of an owl is often interpreted as a warning, a sign of possible misfortune; while other tribes, such as the Mandan and several bands of the Mission Indians of California, revere the animal, whose feathers are worn in a variety of religious celebrations, and whom they believe to possess great strength and spiritual power.
It is also of value to acknowledge the fact that when animals were hunted as a means of providing nourishment, in turn ensuring the subsistence of generations of people, every part of their bodies was utilized: the meat was eaten, bone was used to make tools of seemingly endless variety, objects of adornment and musical instruments such as flutes and whistles; hide was used for clothing and footwear, blankets, shelter, and as canvas for paintings and pictorial documentation of important events and occurrences, records of time and seasonal and celestial information; sinew and intestine provided bowstring and thread for sewing garments and stringing beads, etc; teeth, such as those of elk and moose, were often used for decorating clothing and were also fashioned into gaming pieces; hooves of deer and antelope became ceremonial rattles. There was no thoughtless or unnecessary taking of animal life; even when religion dictated the killing of an animal for ceremonial purposes, this was carried out with great care, planning and protocol, and always by those to whom the spiritual and religious leadership of the tribe was assigned.
Many animal legends and stories speak of fantastic magical events, spiritual transformations and journeys of the soul. They reflect with great wonder and beauty the importance of animals in our lives and elucidate their infinite and invaluable contributions to our world, and to the cultural landscapes in which we reside.
Nowhere is the spiritual relationship between man and animal better illustrated than within the context of tribal dance; where words, sound and movement flow into each other, where dimensions fuse through rhythm and song, and where man himself becomes the animal whose hide he wears, whose voice guides him to the place where earth and heaven meet.
American Indian Pueblo culture and knowledge are infused with an array of animal personas. There is Buffalo, who represents leadership, long life, abundance and power. He is the icon of physical strength, spiritual insight, dedication and courage. Eagle is undoubtedly the most revered of all birds which figure in American Indian mythology and legend. He is symbolic of wisdom, strength of vision and heart, and higher consciousness. Butterfly is often associated with water, and thus is representative of Mother Earth’s life-giving forces. She is a totem of quickness of mind, agility, fertility, proliferation, regeneration, spiritual transfor-mation and rebirth. And there is Turtle, who is wise and unhurried, unwavering and changeless; a symbol of the mother and of Mother earth. Also exemplifying longevity and eternal life, Turtle reflects the constant renewal of life and land.
All of these animals, and many others, are honored through a variety of intricately choreographed dances. They are, in essence, living stories; tales of creation, migration and survival, plantings and harvests, births and deaths, the changing of seasons, the movement of constellations, and a multitude of other events common to the human experience, told through sound and movement.
The variety and complexity of Pueblo animal dances is impressive, with the roles of each animal having been previously defined and set forth generations ago. These roles do not change, and are not open to interpretation; the dances in which these roles are contained are practiced within a predetermined calendar of sorts, primarily dictated by seasonal events and activities, religious beliefs, and spiritual practices within the tribe. For example, Butterfly and Turtle dances are symbolic of Mother Earth’s annual renewal and regeneration processes and are therefore usually performed in the spring. Deer and Antelope dances take place in the fall, a traditional time of hunting and preparing for the imminent change of season. Buffalo dances are winter dances, celebrating the abundance of food and the continued survival of the tribe.
Other common dances occur throughout the year as well, sometimes in connection with Christian-based celebrations such as Easter and Christmas. Even then, the animals represented remain in context with the current season; an Easter dance, because it is in the spring, would most likely include Butterfly or Turtle, while a Christmas eve dance would in turn represent fall or winter oriented animals such as Deer or Buffalo.
Over time we have assigned specific attributes and characteristics to specific animals, thereby identifying our beliefs in no uncertain terms, and embracing their influences in our ordinary lives. Through our stories and legends, our songs and our dances, we honor our animal relations, in whom we see ourselves, and with whom we share our homes, our history, our ceremonial and spiritual pursuits, our challenges and triumphs, our victories and defeats. . . and to whom we so often look for direction, and assurance of our
continued survival.The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque – Volume 16 by Rosemary Diaz.
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01.16.10 | Santa Fe and Taos Art Communities (History)
Posted 6:02pm by Legends Santa Fe
Even before the arrival of the “Anglo” artists who would form the art colonies of Taos and Santa Fe, the pioneering spirit of explorer-artists such as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin gave the eastern United States and Europe a glimpse into the world of the American West and the first Americans.
Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the numerous events and circumstances that drew pioneering artists to northern New Mexico were inextricably linked . . . for then as now, each event was connected to an occurrence proceeding or paralleling it. Railroad survey crews and census takers were frequently accompanied by artists who would sketch and paint this exotic land and its inhabitants. In 1880 Peter Moran, youngest brother of Thomas Moran, accompanied the group that first counted the residents of southwestern Indian pueblos. Moran’s chalk sketches and watercolors are among the earliest “Anglo” documentation of pueblo life.
But it is Joseph Henry Sharp who is most often referred to as the artist who “started it all.” Pursuing his dream of painting Indian subjects, Sharp first visited New Mexico in 1883. Ten years later he returned to Taos for the summer; then, in Paris 1895 he met Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips and passed on word of a remote painter’s paradise. The Ernest Blumenschein/Bert Phillips first encounter with New Mexico is legendary. In 1898, the two artists set out from Denver on a sketching trip intended to end in Mexico. Somewhere around Questa, north of Taos, a wagon wheel broke.
A losing flip of a gold-piece sent Blumenschein on horseback to Taos for repairs. By the time he returned to the stranded Bert Phillips, each had been smitten by the magnificence of northern New Mexico and each eventually returned to settle in Taos.
In the next years, Phillips and Blumenschein were joined by Joseph Sharp, Oscar Berninghaus, E. Irving Couse and W. Herbert Dunton and in 1915 the Taos Society of Artists was formed. Other elected members of the Society were Walter Ufer, Victor Higgins, Martin Hennings, Kenneth Adams and Catherine Critcher, the Society’s only woman member. These well-trained artists with considerable professional experience brought European techniques to uniquely American subject matter. The Society’s stated purpose was to advance the standards of American art and to promote the work of its members through traveling exhibitions. These goals were in fact achieved and the Society put itself out of operation in 1927.
During this time, the Santa Fe Railway was actively engaged in promoting regional tourism and artistic interest in the Southwest. To that end, beginning in 1892 with Thomas Moran, the Railway provided artists free passage to picturesque locations. From other artists, the Railway commissioned southwestern pictures for advertisements in popular magazines and for decoration of train stations and affiliated Harvey restaurants and hotels.
Many forces worked to bring renowned painters, photographers and authors to New Mexico. Among them were the strong beckoning of those already here. Mabel Dodge Luhan lured artists and authors to New Mexico as tirelessly as a missionary. Among those she “summoned” were D.H. Lawrence, Marsden Hartley and Andrew Dasburg. Each talented person who came and discovered the richness of the Indian and Hispanic cultures and the undeniable magnetism of the landscape, in turn encouraged others to come. Another important magnet to northern New Mexico was the healing, dry air of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Many early artists arrived—some on stretchers—at Sunmount Sanitarium in Santa Fe seeking relief from debilitating respiratory ailments. Finding the climate salutary and the light inspirational, most stayed to develop their art and to continue to build the burgeoning artistic community. Among those influential people who recovered and stayed to add their talents to the magnificent mix were John Gaw Meem, Alice Corbin Henderson, Sheldon Parsons and Carlos Vierra.
Santa Fe became the center of Anglo interest in Hispanic culture. Ironically, it was a group of non-Hispanic transplants who led the crusade to preserve Spanish colonial art and urged contemporary craftsmen to revive carving traditions. It was in Santa Fe that those artists lived who responded to—and painted—Hispanic people and their customs, including the secretive Penitente rituals. These artists formed a close group within Santa Fe’s artistic community. In 1920, Will Shuster and Willard Nash arrived in Santa Fe. The next year, Shuster, Nash, Fremont Ellis, Walter Mruk, and Jozef Bakos formed the avant-garde group Los Cinco Pintores. Los Cinco Pintores represented a new, vigorous and original generation of artists. The group held its first exhibition in December 1921 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. The group would dissolve in 1926.
The list of influential artists who, drawn to Northern New Mexico by the power of the land, the urging of friends, or their own failing health, is an impressively long one. As a group, their legacy is a major contribution to mainstream American art; individually, each has left an imprint on those who followed and on those artists who continue to be enticed by the magic of New Mexico.
The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe and Taos – Volume 5 by Pamela Michaelis.
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01.16.10 | The Beginning: Santa Fe Art Colony
Posted 5:36pm by Legends Santa Fe
When “Anglo” artists began to settle in the Santa Fe area in the opening years of the twentieth century, they discovered a mother lode of images, esthetics and amenities. The main draw was the landscape. It was, and is, a matchless blend of shape, color and light. Its proportions are majestic, yet its scale is human.
These artists were charmed by the native inhabitants, who had lived in the surrounding pueblos for centuries. Their culture was beautiful to see and to paint, and their own artistic heritage was evident in pottery, weaving and architecture. A more recent society, the Spanish colonists who had settled the area in the sixteenth century, had brought in their own European traditions of furniture, wood carving, embroidery, tinwork and painted embellishments.
Finally, there were the Taos Founders who had arrived at the end of the nineteenth century. They formed a cohesive group of educated Easterners in a tiny, remote village seventy miles north of Santa Fe. They preceded the early Santa Fe artists by only a couple of decades. In many ways, their arrivals overlapped, for there was much cultural interchange between the village of Taos and the provincial capital of Santa Fe, and many artists visited both places before settling in one or the other.
Both groups consisted largely of artists who already had a considerable reputation before they came West. They were not entirely cut off from their Eastern markets, for many of them divided their time or made annual trips, thus importing New Mexico to the East Coast as well as exporting their talents to the frontier. John Sloan, one of several who had exhibited at the famed Armory Show of 1913 in New York, established a home on Garcia Street off Canyon Road and spent every summer for twenty years, while continuing to teach in New York in the winter.
Randall Davey, another Armory Show exhibitor, established a permanent residence high up Canyon Road where it enters the wilderness. He left it to the Audubon Society, where today’s visitors may enjoy exhibits and nature trails in a spectacular setting. He, too, had taught in New York as well as Chicago, but he found a position at the University of New Mexico. He started every class with a rousing discussion of the road conditions between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and was especially interested to know if any of his students had managed a better driving time than he. Few ever did.
For many of the early artists, there were significant advantages to the dry desert climate. It gave Carlos Vierra, Sheldon Parsons, Gerald Cassidy, Theodore Van Soelen and a considerable number of others a major second career, their first one having been jeopardized by tuberculosis and other maladies contracted back east. Another amenity was the simple, gracious lifestyle that almost anyone could afford. Above all, there was the company of like minds. Such camaraderie was very satisfying for artists whose purpose was serious. And they were serious, if only by virtue of their acceptance of the isolation and simplicity they found in Santa Fe.
There were many such Edens in early twentieth century America. None of them had exactly the same charm, but charm alone was not the factor that created Santa Fe’s art colony. The one element that tipped the balance was the Museum of New Mexico. The Museum was headed by Dr. Edgar L. Hewett, who was an artist as well as an archaeologist. He and his farsighted colleagues set up a support system aimed at attracting and keeping fine artists.
Studios were created in several rooms in back of the patio at the Governor’s Palace, which by then was Museum headquarters. This afforded newcomers a place to get straight to work even as they looked for quarters for themselves and, frequently, for their families. Exhibition of their work was a matter of arranging shows right at the Museum. In those days, there was very little gallery or dealership activity, and artists would simply hang their paintings in order to show their colleagues and community what they were doing. Some of the work was purchased by local or visiting collectors and some of it was sent to galleries back East. In this manner, the artists were able to make a living.
In 1917, the Museum of New Mexico opened its Museum of Fine Arts on the northwest corner of the Plaza. No effort was spared to make the building elegant, expansive and, above all, authentic. The first exhibit, mostly donated by the pioneering local artists, became the core of the Museum’s distinguished collection.
In the early twenties, the Santa Fe art colony enjoyed its first period of real greatness. One of the all time benchmarks, Los Cinco Pintores (the five painters), came together at that time. This was a group of five artists: Jozef Bakos, Fremont Ellis, Walter Mruk, Willard Nash and Will Shuster. A more diverse array of artistic style would be hard to imagine, and they only showed together for a few years. But their friendship was ongoing. They built adjacent houses on Camino del Monte Sol with the help of Frank Applegate, an artist and archaeologist who had already purchased a tract of land and built his own residence. The Cinco Pintores were among the most colorful fixtures of the early Santa Fe art scene, becoming known as “the five little nuts in the five adobe huts.” The tag was more indulgent than derogatory, for the artists exerted an influence that was out of proportion to their numbers as well as their modest means.
Some of the New Mexico art contingent worked in traditional styles, while others kept abreast of world developments. A vigorous Modernist movement developed in New Mexico, with Cubist and Abstract elements infusing canvases with Southwestern themes and, sometimes, supplanting them altogether. Hewett’s evenhanded policy of exhibiting all serious work at the Museum, particularly that of Raymond Jonson, ultimately led to his ouster as director.
It was too late. As the art colony developed further, it became evident that diversity was here to stay. A fledgling Modernist was William Lumpkins, a youngster who came to town in the 1930’s, fresh out of the University of New Mexico. He went on to become the only person ever to receive a Governor’s Award in both art and architecture. Today, in his late eighties, he continues to paint and exhibit. He may be seen out and about, fraternizing with other artists in the time-honored tradition. His presence is reassuring, for much of the art colony and all it stood for has changed beyond recognition. The distances from the great cities have been closed by modern transportation and telecommunication. The trappings of commerce have turned Santa Fe into a theme park about itself.
Yet, through it all, the art colony lives because the art itself remains the central focus. Change is inevitable and even desirable, and the freshest ideas in no way negate the ones that came before. Nostalgia for today will become the sentiment of tomorrow. Finding the true gems among the tinsel, and knowing that they will form the text of the future, is the Collector’s greatest reward.
The Collector’s Guide to Santa Fe and Taos – Volume 11. Authored by Suzanne Deats.
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