The group then met Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins and voted them in as Active Members in July of 1917. Julius Rolshoven became an Associate Member in 1917 and then an active member in 1918. E. Martin Hennings became an Active Member in 1924. The only woman of the group, Catherine C. Critcher, became an Active Member also in 1924. And Kenneth Adams, the last and youngest of the group, became a member in 1926, only one year before the group disbanded. Bert Geer Phillips was the first of the group to take up year-round residency in Taos in 1898. He opened doors by establishing close relationships between the Native Americans and artists who joined him in succeeding years. He is represented by a vividly colored portrait, Warbonnet Shadows. |
Eanger Irving Couse was nearly as prolific as Sharp. In 1920 he stated, "My interest has always been the domestic side of the Indian rather than the usual conception of the Indian always on the warpath." He was the first to achieve a national reputation through his success in the National Academy of Design's juried exhibitions. He also created twenty-three images, similar to Fireside Indian, that were reproduced on the Santa Fe Railway's annual calendars. He popularized a kneeling Native American in interior settings, illuminated by man-made fire. These paintings are beautiful examples of how three artists with strong academic backgrounds produced striking and sometimes romanticized canvases of Native Americans. |
After Ernest Blumenschein's initial visit to Taos in 1898, he and his wife traveled to Europe and returned to Taos seasonally until the late 1910s. His European training as well as his mature work in Taos is represented in the collection, notably Taos Landscape. In the 1920s, critics referred to Blumenschein as a decorative painter, a reference to his bold form of modernism. In addition to painting, he was also deeply involved as a violinist. In his Indian ceremonials and landscapes, the viewer is made conscious of his interest in strong colors, bold forms, and poetic rhythms. |
Two paintings by another highly respected illustrator, William Herbert "Buck" Dunton, the "cowboy" painter of Taos, are among the highlights of the collection. Dunton's Portrait of John Reyna depicts the seated Native American in a three-quarter view, dressed in ceremonial costume. He is highlighted by a handsome bonnet and all the trappings of a proud chieftain. The oil sketch for McMullin, Guide (in the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas) is one of a half-dozen studies that Dunton did for his monumental canvas of the hunter and his hounds. Few artists put greater effort into a canvas. The oil sketch is remarkable for its bold, spontaneous brushwork, freshness, and authenticity. |