The Taos Art Museum is an art museum located in Taos, New Mexico in the Nicolai Fechin House. This was the home of Russian artist Nicolai Fechin, his wife Alexandra, and daughter Eya. The museum's primary aims are to improve awareness of the works and patronage of Taos artists and to nurture local artistic development. Many of the works of the Taos Society of Artists are held by museums outside of New Mexico, leading them to work to "Bring Taos art back to Taos."
The Museum's permanent collection features Nicolai Fechin's House and Studio. These architectural masterpieces united Fechin’s artistic sensibilities and architectural skills combining Russian, Native American, Spanish, and Art Deco styles.
The permanent collection includes works by Fechin and members of the Taos Society of Artists. Nearly all members are represented, including Joseph Henry Sharp, Bert Geer Phillips, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Ernest L. Blumenschein, Walter Ufer, E. Irving Couse, W. Herbert Dunton, Joseph Fleck, Ernest Martin Hennings, William Victor Higgins, Catherine Critcher, Gustave Baumann, Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, and Julius Rolshoven. [1]
The vitality of the Taos art colony, catalyzed by TSA members and other artists represented in the collection such as Leon Gaspard, Joseph Imhoff, Gene Kloss, Ila Mae McAfee, and Dorothy Brett, was sustained in the 1940s by the Taos Moderns. Deeply influenced by the Great Depression and the turbulent currents of Modernism, these artists included Andrew Dasburg, Louis Leon Ribak, Beatrice Mandelman, Emil Bisttram, Howard Cook, Cliff Harmon, and Ward Lockwood, who are represented.
Following World War II, Taos became a crossroads in contemporary American art, combining the influences of American and European Modernism and the bright light, exceptional landscapes, and cultural diversity of the region that inspired generations of artists such as Rod Goebel, Walt Gonske, Jackson Hensley, Charles Stewart, Julian Robles, and R.C. Gorman.
The Taos Art Museum opened in 1994 to exhibit the collection of Edwin and Novella Lineberry in memory of Lineberry's first wife, artist Duane Van Vechten. 2003 marked the official opening of the Museum in its current location, built between 1927 and 1933, and with its new name, Taos Art Museum at Fechin House.
The house of Russian-American artist Nicolai Fechin was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1979, [2] and is also a New Mexico Registered Cultural Property. Eya Fechin opened the house to the public as a museum in 1979. She continued living there until her death in November 2002. [3]
The Board of the Taos Art Museum acquired the Fechin property and installed security and lighting systems, treated the windows to filter ultraviolet rays, and refinished the interior walls and floors.
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Chacón to act as fortified plaza and trading outpost for the neighboring Native American Taos Pueblo and Hispano communities, including Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, El Prado, and Arroyo Seco. The town was incorporated in 1934. As of the 2010 census, its population was 5,716.
The Taos art colony was an art colony founded in Taos, New Mexico, by artists attracted by the culture of the Taos Pueblo and northern New Mexico. The history of Hispanic craftsmanship in furniture, tin work, and other mediums also played a role in creating a multicultural tradition of art in the area.
Ernest Leonard Blumenschein was an American artist and founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He is noted for paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico and the American Southwest.
Eanger Irving Couse was an American artist and a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists. Born and reared in Saginaw, Michigan, he went to New York City and Paris to study art. While spending summers in Taos, New Mexico, he began to make the paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico, and the American Southwest for which he is best known. He later settled full time in Taos.
An art colony, also known as an artists' colony, can be defined two ways. Its most liberal description refers to the organic congregation of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, often drawn by areas of natural beauty, the prior existence of other artists or art schools there, and a lower cost of living. More commonly, the term refers to the guest-host model of a mission-driven planned community, which administers a formal process for awarding artist residencies. In the latter case, a typical mission might include providing artists with the time, space and support to create; fostering community among artists; and providing arts education to the public. Early 20th century American guest-host models include New Hampshire's MacDowell Colony and New York's Yaddo.
Walter Ufer was an American artist based in Taos, New Mexico. His most notable work focuses on scenes of Native American life, particularly of the Pueblo Indians.
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was a wealthy American patron of the arts, who was particularly associated with the Taos art colony.
Taos Plaza is a center of shops and monuments within the Taos Downtown Historic District in Taos, New Mexico.
Nicolai Fechin was a Russian-American painter known for his portraits and works featuring Native Americans. After graduating with the highest marks from the Imperial Academy of Arts and traveling in Europe under a Prix de Rome, he returned to his native Kazan, where he taught and painted. He exhibited his first work in the United States in 1910 in an international exhibition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After immigrating with his family to New York in 1923 and working there for a few years, Fechin developed tuberculosis and moved West for a drier climate. He and his family settled in Taos, New Mexico, where he became fascinated by Native Americans and the landscape. The adobe house which he renovated in Taos is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is used as the Taos Art Museum. After leaving Taos in 1933, Fechin eventually settled in southern California.
Joseph Henry Sharp was an American painter and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which he is considered the "Spiritual Father". Sharp was one of the earliest European-American artists to visit Taos, New Mexico, which he saw in 1893 with artist John Hauser. He painted American Indian portraits and cultural life, as well as Western landscapes. President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned him to paint the portraits of 200 Native American warriors who survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. While working on this project, Sharp lived on land of the Crow Agency, Montana, where he built Absarokee Hut in 1905. Boosted by his sale of 80 paintings to Phoebe Hearst, Sharp quit teaching and began to paint full-time.
The Ernest L. Blumenschein House is a historic house museum and art gallery at 222 Ledoux Street in Taos, New Mexico. It was a home of painter Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960), a co-founder of the Taos Society of Artists and one of the "Taos Six". It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
The Taos Society of Artists was an organization of visual arts founded in Taos, New Mexico. Established in 1915, it was disbanded in 1927. The Society was essentially a commercial cooperative, as opposed to a stylistic collective, and its foundation contributed to the development of the tiny Taos art colony into an international art center.
The Millicent Rogers Museum is an art museum in Taos, New Mexico, founded in 1956 by the family of Millicent Rogers. Initially the artworks were from the multi-cultural collections of Millicent Rogers and her mother, Mary B. Rogers, who donated many of the first pieces of Taos Pueblo art. In the 1980s, the museum was the first cultural organization in New Mexico to offer a comprehensive collection of Hispanic art.
The Nicolai Fechin House in Taos, New Mexico, is the historic home of the Russian artist Nicolai Fechin, his wife Alexandra and daughter Eya. After purchasing the house in 1928, he spent several years enlarging and modifying the two-story adobe structure, for instance, enlarging the porch and adding and widening windows to take advantage of the views. He carved many of the fittings of the house and its furniture, using typical Russian design elements such as "triptych windows and intricately carved doors." The whole reflects a modernist sensibility combined with Russian, Native American and Spanish traditions.
The Harwood Museum of Art is located in Taos, New Mexico. Founded in 1923 by the Harwood Foundation, it is the second oldest art museum in New Mexico. Its collections include a wide range of Hispanic works and visual arts from the Taos Society of Artists, Taos Moderns, and contemporary artists. In 1935 the museum was purchased by the University of New Mexico. Since then the property has been expanded to include an auditorium, library and additional exhibition space.
Taos Downtown Historic District is a historic district in Taos, New Mexico. Taos "played a major role in the development of New Mexico, under Spanish, Mexican, and American governments." It a key historical feature of the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway of northern New Mexico.
Eva Mirabal, also known as Eah-Ha-Wa (1920–1968) was a Native American painter, muralist, illustrator, and cartoonist from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Her primary medium was gouache, a type of watercolor.
Beatrice Mandelman, known as Bea, was an American abstract artist associated with the group known as the Taos Moderns. She was born in Newark, New Jersey to Anna Lisker Mandelman and Louis Mandelman, Jewish immigrants who imbued their children with their social justice values and love of the arts. After studying art in New York City and being employed by the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project (WPA-FAP), Mandelman arrived in Taos, New Mexico, with her artist husband Louis Leon Ribak in 1944 at the age of 32. Mandelman's oeuvre consisted mainly of paintings, prints, and collages. Much of her work was highly abstract, including her representational pieces such as cityscapes, landscapes, and still lifes. Through the 1940s, her paintings feature richly textured surfaces and a subtly modulated, often subdued color palette. New Mexico landscape and culture had a profound influence on Mandelman's style, influencing it towards a brighter palette, more geometric forms, flatter surfaces, and more crisply defined forms. One critic wrote that the "twin poles" of her work were Cubism and Expressionism. Her work is included in many major public collections, including large holdings at the University of New Mexico Art Museum and Harwood Museum of Art.
Portrait of Jack Hunter is a painting by the Russian-American artist Nicolai Fechin (1881–1955) from the collection of the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. The author portrayed an employee of the American insurance company and collector Jack R. Hunter. The portrait has a special value for the Russian Museum collection, as it represents the American period of the artist's work.
Cemetery, New Mexico is an early 20th century painting by American artist Marsden Hartley. Done in oil on canvas, the painting depicts a cemetery in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. The work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Coordinates: 36°24′37.6″N105°34′10.2″W / 36.410444°N 105.569500°W
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