Image of the Day, March 21, 2012

While living in Chicago, Walter Ufer’s patron, Chicago mayor Carter Harrison, sent Ufer to Taos to paint the land and the indigenous people, but cautioned him not to romanticize them, but to paint them as they lived and worked in the landscape. To heighten the realism he was searching for, Ufer often painted at mid-day when the sun bleached the greasewood and sage and the only color to be found was in the bright clothing of the Pueblo Indians, and the arroyos carved by flash floods.

Walter Ufer, Untitled, oil on canvas, c. 1925. Private Collection. Photo Credit: My-West.com.©More on Walter Ufer:

Painting of the Day, November 9, 2011

Painting of the Day, November 27, 2011

By Donna Poulton

W. Herbert “Buck” Dunton (1878 – 1936), The Open Range, 1920s, oil on canvas.  Credit: 1ArtClub.com

W. Herbert  “Buck” Dunton was a successful illustrator working for Scribner’s, Harper’s, and for Zane Grey before settling in Taos and becoming founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. Before his work became more stylized toward the end of his career, Dunton used a softer more impressionistic approach to paint the sun-drenched landscape that surrounded him.

The value range of lights and darks can only be seen on the riders and horses.  There are no shadows because the sun seems to be directly overhead.  The abscence of value is more easily illustrated in this photo-shopped black and white image.

To see more of Herbert Buck Dunton, you might like our prior post on the painting Fall in the Foothills.

Painting of the Day, November 3, 2011

By Donna Poulton

"When I was a little boy and lived in Maine, I read everything about the West I could get my hands on - not dime novels, but everything authentic. I lived the life in prospect. Then I lived it in actuality, living with cowpunchers in Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona - all along the cattle strip. Now that those days are gone, I live it in retrospect and in my pictures." - W. Herbert Dunton

W. Herbert  “Buck” Dunton was a successful illustrator working for Scribner’s, Harper’s, and for Zane Grey before settling in Taos and becoming founding member of the Taos Society of Artists.  While his illustrations are more detailed and representative, his finished easel work is much more stylized.           

Credit: amica.davidrumsey.com

W. Herbert “Buck” Dunton (1878 – 1936), Fall in the Foothills, c. 1933, oil on canvas, 34 x 42 in. Collection of the AMICA Library

Painting of the Day, November 2, 2011

By Donna Poulton

"This strong primitive appeal calls out the side of art that is not derivative; it urges the painter to get his subjects, his coloring, his tone from the real life about him, not from the wisdom of the studios." - Victor Higgins

Credit: Image courtesy of private collector

William Victor Higgins (1884-1949), Pink and Black, 1930s, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 in. Private Collection

Victor Higgins first learned of Taos while studying art in Chicago and Munich. In 1913 he moved to Taos and joined the Society of Taos Artists in 1917. Influenced by the modernists of the time, his work evolved toward reduced and flattened forms, while taking advantage of the pure color inherent in the design of native people and of the landscape.