Taos Society of Artists

Taos Society of Artists
Name	Taos Society of Artists
Caption	E. Irving Cramer, "Dawn in Taos"
Founded	1915
Dissolved	1927
Location	Taos, New Mexico
Notable members	E. Irving Couse; Oscar E. Berninghaus; Joseph Henry Sharp; Bert Geer Phillips; Ernest L. Blumenschein; W. Herbert Dunton; E. Irving Couse

Taos Society of Artists The Taos Society of Artists was an artist collective formed in 1915 in Taos, New Mexico, that promoted painting of Southwestern landscapes, Indigenous peoples, and local scenes. It connected regional subjects with national audiences through exhibitions in New York galleries, museum venues, and art associations, shaping perceptions of the American West. The society's members were painters with networks spanning the Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, and patrons such as William Merritt Chase and Newcomb College supporters.

History

The origins trace to encounters between artists and Southwest communities after expeditions like those by Kit Carson era travelers and routes such as the Santa Fe Trail, which brought painters and collectors to Taos Pueblo, Rio Grande, San Francisco, Denver, and Santa Fe. Early gatherings involved studio exchanges influenced by itinerant artists returning from study at institutions like the Académie Julian, École des Beaux-Arts, Art Students League of New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The group formalized in 1915 amid national debates over realism and modernism that involved figures associated with the Armory Show and debates in periodicals tied to the National Academy of Design and the Pittsburgh School of Painting. Touring exhibitions took works to venues including the Galleries of Macbeth, the Fletcher Gallery, and the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, expanding ties to collectors in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

Membership and Founding Artists

Founders included painters with prior ties to art colonies and academies: Ernest L. Blumenschein, Bert Geer Phillips, E. Irving Couse, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Joseph Henry Sharp, W. Herbert Dunton, and E. A. Burbank among others who had connections to mentors and patrons like Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase, Julien Dupré, John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer. Later affiliates and exhibitors included artists who studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Académie Julian, and who had exhibited with the Society of American Artists, the National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The roster linked to collectors and institutions such as Arthur Curtiss James, Milton Avery, Samuel Putnam Avery, and museum trustees from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Phillips Collection.

Artistic Style and Influences

Members synthesized techniques drawn from European Impressionism, American Realism, Tonalisme, and practices seen in works by Claude Monet, Jean-François Millet, Édouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler, and Gustave Courbet. They absorbed lessons from schools including the Académie Julian, the Art Students League of New York, and the Royal Academy, while responding to visual cultures of Taos Pueblo, Isleta Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo communities influenced by ceremonial regalia and architecture linked to sites like the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church and the Taos Pueblo plaza. Their palette and plein air methods echoed trends in exhibitions at the Armory Show, the Society of Independent Artists, and regional salons such as those in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Denver.

Major Works and Exhibitions

Signature canvases and exhibitions circulated through institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Notable paintings by society members were shown alongside works by John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and contemporaries who appeared at the Whitney Studio Club and the Armory Show. Touring exhibitions reached patrons in New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, and featured subjects such as Pueblo ceremonies, Rio Grande vistas, adobe architecture, and portraits of figures like Chief Blanco-style sitters, rural laborers, and Western settlers portrayed in the context of broader American painting narratives represented by the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Organizational Activities and Impact

The society organized annual exhibitions, membership juries, and collaborative promotions with galleries including the Macbeth Gallery, the Fletcher Gallery, and municipal museums associated with the Smithsonian Institution and the Albright–Knox Art Gallery. It contributed to the cultural tourism economy of Taos, influenced collectors such as William T. Evans and John G. Johnson, and intersected with writers and photographers like Mabel Dodge Luhan, Ansel Adams, and Dorothea Lange who helped broadcast Taos imagery in periodicals and catalogues. The society's advocacy shaped museum collecting policies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and regional institutions in New Mexico and the American Southwest, prompting acquisitions and exhibitions that impacted how institutions such as the New Mexico Museum of Art and university galleries presented Indigenous and Western subjects.

Decline and Legacy

Membership and influence waned in the 1920s as modernist currents led by artists associated with the Armory Show, the Whitney Museum, and European émigrés shifted patron interest toward abstraction and avant-garde movements linked to Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp. By 1927 the society disbanded, but its paintings remained in collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New Mexico Museum of Art, private collections of patrons like Arthur Curtiss James, and university museums across New Mexico and the Southwest. Its legacy persists in scholarship produced by historians connected to the Smithsonian Institution, curators from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and exhibition catalogues from the Museum of New Mexico, influencing subsequent artists and institutions engaged with Southwestern artistic heritage.

Category:American artist groups Category:Art colonies in the United States