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| Autumn 1999 issue | . | The art of Taos | |
More Taos art: Bert Geer Phillips: Before the Hunt Ernest Blumenschein: Grace Before Meals WalterUfer: Cottonwoods & Aspens Ufer: The Yellow Shirt Higgins: Rinconada ND's Snite Museum |
 Just over 100 years ago two intrepid artists broke a wheel 20 miles outside
of Taos, New Mexico, as they traveled through the American Southwest searching for
inspiration. Their bad luck, however, became their good fortune. When Bert Geer Phillips
and Ernest Leonard Blumenschein sought repairs in the tiny Indian village, they quickly
realized they had found what they had been seeking: a place filled with dazzling vistas
and interesting people to draw and paint. Thus the Taos Art Colony was founded in1898.
Subsequently, wave after wave of artists made the trek to the remote New Mexico community
where they settled and created some of the most important examples of Southwestern
American art. That the colony sustained itself and even prospered is perhaps the most amazing element of the story. Since Taos was so removed from the major art markets of the day, artists who settled there had to be doubly creative, first in making their art, then in marketing it. Through luck and pluck they managed to forge relationships with an array of generous patrons, including Carter Harrison, a mayor of Chicago, such corporations as the Santa Fe Railway, and with museums and government agencies. It is this portion of the tale that Notre Dame=s Director of the Snite Museum of Art Dean Porter, the Snite=s Southwestern American art curator Teresa Hayes Ebie, art historian Suzan Campbell and their colleagues tell in their groundbreaking study and art exhibit ATaos Artists and Their Patrons: 1898-1950.@ The study, conceived by Porter, was a collaborative effort involving more than 10 scholars and took seven years of work. The team examined the art and patronage relationships of more than 60 Taos artists, including Victor Higgins, Walter Ufer, Phillips and Blumenschein. The result of their labor is a major exhibition of 85 important works of Southwestern art and a lavish 400-page book with 400 illustrations, including 100 in color. The study is the first major scholarly examination of the relationship between American artists and their patrons, a long-neglected segment of American art history. The exhibition also is the most ambitious ever undertaken by the Snite and includes oils, watercolors, sculpture and prints. The show will be on display at the University=s art museum until November 14. The exhibit had it=s grand opening in May at Tulsa, Oklahoma=s Gilcrease Museum where it was shown in conjunction with that museum=s 50th anniversary celebration. Following the Snite exhibit, the show will be on display at the Phoenix Art Museum from December 18, 1999, to March 5, 2000; at The Albuquerque Museum from April 16 to August 6, 2000, and finally, at San Antonio=s McNay Art Museum from September 12 to December 3, 2000. |
Walter Ufer, Their Audience (The Snite Museum of Art; Gift of Walter J.andWilliam J. Klauer)
Victor Higgins at work
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