A Journal for Classic Western Art
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April/May 2013
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WHAT'S GOING ON
Greetings and happy spring! Over the past several months we've been busy navigating the complexities of the virtual world and are happy to announce the result of this activity: the unveiling of our updated website. While it maintains a similar look, our website has undergone a full make-over to enhance our virtual gallery, making it as up to date and as visitor friendly as possible. Please take a peek and get to know our new format. We've got some wonderful new artwork to see and if you have any comments, we'd appreciate hearing from you.
This issue places a spotlight on the topic of black and white in art. There's a significant range of art created with techniques that jettison color altogether, allowing the artist to focus full attention on the expressive power of line and composition, the gradations of darkness and light, to convey his or her intentions. Artists can choose from a wide variety of techniques to utilize, such as drawing with pen and ink, charcoal or pencil/graphite; print techniques in etching, drypoint, aquatint, woodblock, lithography and steel engraving; photogravure and photography. Our online exhibition presents fine examples of work from such major names as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas and Peter Moran, Ernest L. Blumenschein, E. Martin Hennings, T. C. Cannon and many more. The exhibit and its accompanying essay are titled, simply, "It's Black and White."
In addition, you'll see selected works from our new acquisitions, a new book feature, art news, listings for museum exhibits nationwide and what's happening in and around Santa Fe. As always, please do remember to stop by and visit us whenever you are in Santa Fe.
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| CONTACT US | | |
651 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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NEW ACQUISITIONS
Charles Burchfield (1893-1967)
"Drought, Sun and Corn"
Watercolor
40 x 27 inches
Signed lower right and dated 1961-62
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)
"Fishermen by Campfire"
Oil on board
13 1/2 x 18 inches
Signed lower right "A. Bierstadt"
Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953)
"Chief Mourning Eagle-Blackfeet"
Oil on canvas
18 x 12 inches
Signed lower right "J.H. Sharp"
Jo Mora (1876-1947) "Three Katchinas" Watercolor on paper 17 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches Signed lower right: "JJ Mora, East Mesa Ariz '05" 
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (1874-1952)
"Indian in White Robe"
Oil on board
12 x 8 1/4 inches
Signed lower right "O.E. Berninghaus" and dated "16"
Will Shuster (1893-1969) "Hombres Resting" Oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches Signed, titled and dated on verso "June 1922"
 Dorothy Brett (1883-1977)
"The Deer Hunters" Oil on masonite 19 7/8 x 39 1/2 inches Signed lower right "D. E. Brett" 1954 To view more of our new acquisitions, click here. |
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HISTORIC POTTERY
from the Lanmon Collection
Dwight P. Lanmon is the co-author, with Francis H. Harlow, of three comprehensive books on Pueblo pottery: The Pottery of Zia Pueblo (2003), The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo (2005), and with Duane Anderson, The Pottery of Santa Ana Pueblo (2005). With his wife, art historian Lorraine Lanmon, he co-authored the book Josephine Foard and the Glazed Pottery of Laguna Pueblo (2007). Prior to his research work in the Southwest, Lanmon was Curator of European Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass and served as CEO and Director of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. He and his wife have been students and collectors of Pueblo pottery for over thirty years. Zaplin Lampert Gallery is pleased to be representing this esteemed collection.
Further information available upon request.
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Human beings are fortunate to live in a richly chromatic world where even dim light can host a broad palette of colors. The emotive quality of color is a concept deeply ingrained in human culture and it has been a primary expressive tool for the artist since the days of the paleolithic cave painters. It would be easy to think of art devoid of color as somehow diminished and lacking in emotional quality, but in the hands of a sensitive and skilled practitioner the opposite is proven true. In a black and white format, chromatic distractions are set aside and the bare bones of composition, form, line, light and shade are laid bare revealing the essential architecture of an image.
E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956)
Original sketch for Taos Indian
Graphite on paper
8 x 9 inches
The majority of the artists of the Taos Society were schooled in traditional academic principles in the United States and Europe. Draftsmanship, with a particular focus on figure drawing, was central to the curriculum of the academies they attended and the benefits of this rigorous training are readily apparent in the quality of their work. The pencil drawings of E. Martin Hennings (preparatory sketches for a series of highly regarded lithographs in this instance) and the pen and ink sketches of O.E. Berninghaus are eloquent testament to this quality.
Following a path typical of their day, many of the Taos Society artists began their professional careers as commercial artists and illustrators. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the world of commercial printing was almost entirely lacking of color and, as a result, much original art created for illustrative purposes was executed en grisaille (in tones of grey). Additionally, the most commonly employed fine art printmaking processes of the era -- both intaglio and lithographic -- were primarily monochromatic.
 Howard Cook (1901-1980) "Morning Smokes"
Woodblock print
8 x 8 inches
Signed lower right
Some exceptional New Mexico printmakers, among them Gene Kloss and Howard Cook, rarely utilized color in their graphic work. . . . To continue, click here.
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ONLINE EXHIBITION
Karl Bodmer (1809-1893)
"Deer Beside a River"
Graphite on paper
10 x 15 5/8 inches
Signed lower left "K. Bodmer"
c. 1850
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)
"Last of the Buffalo"
Photogravure 16 x 27 1/4 inches Signed in the plate and in pencil lower right
1891
 Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960) "Taos Indian in his Blanket" Pencil and ink on paper 9 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches Signed lower left  John Sloan (1871-1951) "Indian Detour" Etching on paper 5 7/8 x 7 inches Signed lower right, titled lower center, with "100 proofs" lower left 
W. Herbert "Buck" Dunton (1878-1936) "The Mountain Mother" Lithograph 12 x 10 inches Signed lower right in the plate: "Dunton of Taos" 
Gene Kloss (1903-1996)
"Penitente Fires"
Drypoint and aquatint
10 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches
Signed lower right and titled lower left
 Edward Weston (1894-1955) "Taos Pueblo" Gelatin silver print Ed. 2/50 Signed lower right and dated 1933 To view the entire online exhibition, click here. |
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BOOK NEWS
New Book on Nicolai Fechin
Lovers of Taos art take notice! The much anticipated book, "Nicolai Fechin: The Art and the Life" has been released and is available through the publisher, Fechin Art Reproductions. Written by one of the foremost scholars of Fechin's life and work, Dr. Galina P. Tuluzakova, deputy director at the State Fine Arts Museum of the Republic of Tatrsta, Kazan, Russia (Fechin's birthplace), it is one of the few books on the artist available in English.
The book contains 427 color images as well as archival family photographs compiled from material from the Fechin private collection. For those interested in Fechin's home in Taos, the book also provides a good deal of information and photographs pertaining to the artist's work there -- from building the home to carving the extensive
interior woodwork. For anyone with a keen interest in Fechin, Tuluzakova's book is surely the definitive book.
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Rims to Ruins
Here's an event that combines the best of the Southwest: art, archaeology and landscape. On May 22nd, Mesa Verde National Park is hosting Rims to Ruins Plein Air Auction.
This is an invitational event, where 28 nationally-recognized artists will convene upon the park's spectacular Wetherill Mesa on May 20th and 21st to paint plein air (outdoors). Intended as a fund-raising event for Mesa Verde Foundation and Mesa Verde National Park, paintings completed in a special time-limited period called the "quick draw," will be auctioned during a special event that includes brunch on Sunday, May 22nd.
All other works completed at Mesa Verde this weekend will subsequently travel to Denver where they will be exhibited at the Denver Public Library. The culmination of Rims to Ruins will be a reception and sale of the paintings on October 22nd. All proceeds will go to Mesa Verde National Park. For more information, call 970-533-1177.
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SANTA FE & NEW MEXICO EVENTS
Selected local exhibits and events:
New Mexico Museum of Art,
Santa Fe
"Back in the Saddle"
Through September 15, 2013
For this exhibit curators have assembled a show that highlights how the horse has been featured in prominent ways in the artwork created in New Mexico since the late 1800s. Showcasing paintings, photographs, prints and drawings, the works provide a view into the cultural history of the Southwest. Many important early New Mexico artists are featured, including the Taos Society of Artists, Gerald Cassidy and William Penhallow Henderson.
ALSO:
"Shiprock and Mont St. Michel: Photographs by William Clift"
Opens April 19 through September 8, 2013
A one-man exhibition by master photographer William Clift, a long-time Santa Fe resident.
Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Santa Fe
"Filigree and Finery: The Art of Spanish Elegance" in the Main Gallery
Through May 27, 2013
Early Spanish colonists in New Mexico faced tremendous hardship and most lived in very modest circumstances. But curators and scholars who have studied documents and artifacts from the colonial period show that the Spanish in New Mexico adorned themselves with decorative items and jewelry made from precious metals for special occassions as well as for the display of power. This exhibit shows that by the early 1800s, a high standard of gold and silver filigree jewelry was being produced in New Mexico and a variety of these decorative items and personal effects are on display.
Santa Fe Symphony and Chorus
Performing Orff's perennial favorite, "Carmina Burana" and Britten's "Four Sea Interludes"
Saturday, May 18, at 5 p.m. and Sunday, May 19 at 4 p.m.
Steven Smith, music director and conductor with Mary Wilson, soprano; Sam Shepperson, tenor; and Jeremy Kelly, baritone.
9th Annual Native Treasures: Indian Arts Festival
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MUSEUM NEWS NATIONWIDE
Denver Art Museum, Denver
"Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico: Architecture, Katsinam, and the Land"
Through Sunday, April 28, 2013
Closing soon, this exhibition brings together fifty-three works by Georgia O'Keeffe, including fifteen of the artist's lesser-known images depicting various Hopi katsina figures. Alongside the paintings, the museum has placed actual historical examples of Hopi katsinas. The exhibit explores the diverse elements within the New Mexico environment--both natural and human--that affected the direction of O'Keeffe's work.
ALSO:
"Rocky Mountain Majesty: The Paintings of Charles Partridge Adams"
Through Sunday, September 8, 2013
Charles Partridge Adams was a Colorado landscape painter active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This exhibit marks the first time that Adams' paintings have been displayed together at a major art museum and the Denver Art Museum is the only venue for this important exhibition that highlights his greatest paintings of Colorado.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
The Civil War and American Art
Through April 28, 2013
This exhibition looks at the different ways the Civil War influenced American artists. Four major artists anchor the exhibit: Frederic Church, Sanford Gifford, Winslow Homer, and Eastman Johnson, but other American artists are also included as well as photographs by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Visiting Masterpieces--Cézanne's The Large Bathers, 1906"
Through May 12, 2013
For lovers of modernism, this is a chance to see seminal works by two French artists who affected the course of art well into the twentieth century. Paul Cézanne, and particularly this painting, "The Large Bathers" (on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art) had a profound influence on several of the artists who explored modernism in New Mexico, particularly Andrew Dasburg and B.J.O. Nordfeldt.
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Thank you for joining us.
Please send us your comments and
stop by the gallery next time you are in Santa Fe.
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