A Journal for Classic Western Art
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August 2014
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WHAT'S GOING ON
It has been a beautiful summer in Santa Fe. This year the weather has been more typically on the cool side and the monsoon season has already bestowed good, hard rains that have brought abundant shades of green to our landscape. With the arrival of August, we gear up for Santa Fe's long-standing annual Indian Market toward the end of the month. For this issue, we decided to provide our readers with some helpful, and we hope, interesting information on a singular aspect of that tradition--classic Navajo blankets. With this in mind, we are featuring an interview with Joshua Baer, an expert on Navajo textiles, along with outstanding examples of these historical and colorful textiles in our online exhibition. You won't want to miss seeing our new acquisitions which include a range of works by Taos artists J. H. Sharp, O.E. Berninghaus and Leon Gaspard, along with a beautiful mountain landscape by C.P. Adams, a fabulous Gustave Baumann print, and a contemporary work by the ever-popular Tony Abeyta. This issue also features a couple of items in recent art news along with our regular selection of museum exhibits nationwide, as well as those closer to home in New Mexico.
And, as always, please remember to "like us" on Facebook, and be sure to stop by and visit us in the gallery whenever you are in Santa Fe.
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651 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY
Over the last few years, Zaplin Lampert Gallery has become active in the market for nineteenth century Navajo blankets. A number of our painting clients also collect Navajo blankets and rugs, so our interest is a natural extension of what we do. To give our readers a perspective on Navajo blankets, we sat down with Joshua Baer, an appraiser of Navajo textiles.
ZLG: What do you look for in a Navajo blanket?
JB: Foreground and background. Most Navajo blankets have a foreground, a background, and some space between the two, what you would call "middle distance" in a painting. In the best Navajo blankets, you'll see interaction between foreground and background.
ZLG: Explain what you mean by that.
JB: It's like an optical effect. Background and foreground change places. The blanket holds still but its designs appear to be in motion.
Classic Third Phase Chief's Blanket with stepped blocks
Navajo, circa 1865
67 inches wide by 58 inches wide
ZLG: How do most collectors display their blankets?
JB: They hang them on the wall, the same way you hang a painting. Blankets need more space around them than paintings, but the idea's the same: Find a place where the blanket looks good, light it properly, and pin it up. After a few weeks of looking at it, if you decide you want it there permanently, run a strip of carpet tacking behind the upper edge of the blanket, mask the nails with acid-free felt, and press the blanket into the carpet tacking. That's a lot better than using Velcro.
ZLG: What's wrong with Velcro?
JB: You have to sew Velcro onto the back of a blanket. Even if you sew cotton onto the blanket to separate the blanket from the Velcro, you're still affecting the chemical composition of the yarns and the dyes in the blanket. Carpet tacking has a more
benign effect, because it distributes the weight of the blanket over hundreds of tiny nails. I've seen a lot of blankets damaged by Velcro, in museums and private hands. I've never seen a blanket damaged by push pins or carpet tacking.
ZLG: Why do blankets need more room around them than paintings?
JB: Paintings are framed. The frame limits the interaction between the painting and the wall. It defines the painting's zone. Classic Navajo blankets were woven with edge-to-edge compositions. They don't have borders. Most good blankets are depictions of distance. If you hang five blankets on the same wall, their compositions will compete with one another and there won't be room for them to tell their stories. If you hang one or two blankets on the same wall with enough distance between them, the empty area around the blankets will allow the design of each blanket stand out.
Transitional Third Phase Chief's Blanket, woman's style
Navajo, circa 1890
52 inches wide by 42 inches wide
ZLG: A couple of years ago, a first phase chief's blanket sold for $1,800,000 at auction. Why do first phases sell for so much money?
JB: People with lots of money want to own icons. This textile was an icon. When two bidders want the same piece, emotions take over. The object becomes more important than the price.
ZLG: Was it a great blanket?
JB: Absolutely. In terms of age, condition, provenance, and style, it was one of the greatest of all time. And it still is. I wish I owned it.
ZLG: Let's get back to foreground and background. Why are they so important?
JB: Navajo blankets were woven outdoors, in the southwestern landscape. In
most cases, blankets were made to be worn around the shoulders, like shawls. During the first half of the nineteenth century, blankets were sold by the weavers to members of other tribes. The Utes, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Sioux loved Navajo chief's blankets. When the blankets were worn by the people who bought them, they were almost always worn outside. In those days, being seen from a distance was a big deal. You saw the blanket before you saw the face of the person who was wearing it. So the far and the near were in play. Blankets with a developed sense of foreground and background were the blankets you remembered. Those were the ones that made an impression on your eyes.
ZLG: And that's still true today?
JB: Absolutely. Blanket collectors want drama. They want the blankets you can't forget.
You can learn more at Joshua Baer's web site at navajoblanketappraisals.com where he offers the public free appraisals of their Navajo blankets and rugs.
For more images of classic Navajo blankets, please visit our online exhibition below.
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NEW ACQUISITIONS
Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953)
"Standing Deer"
Oil on canvas
18 x 12 inches
Signed lower right
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (1874-1952)
"Indians on the Trail"
Oil on board
8 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches
Signed lower right
Leon Gaspard (1882-1964)
"Samarkand Girl"
Oil on canvas on board
16 3/16 x 11 1/2 inches
Signed lower left and inscribed "Samarkand 1926"
Charles Partridge Adams (1858-1942)
"Long's Peak & Mt. Meeker"
Oil on canvas
14 x 20 inches
Signed lower left
Gustave Baumann (1881-1971)
"Procession"
Color woodblock print with silver leaf
12 7/8 x 13 inches
No. 6/120
Signed lower right, titled lower left
1930
Tony Abeyta
"The Rivers Bend"
Oil on canvas
14 x 18 inches
Signed lower right
Signed, titled and dated on verso
2014
To view more of our new acquisitions, click here.
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Congratulations to the Joslyn Art Museum
Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum recently released some interesting news concerning the great Dutch master, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669).
The museum revealed that a painting in its collection, long considered from the "School of Rembrandt," has been confirmed to be an authentic work by the master himself. With this new finding, the Joslyn reintroduced the painting, "Portrait of Dirck van Os," ca. 1658, in a public ceremony on May 5th. Though the painting has been in the museum's collection for 72 years, it spent much of the last decade in storage and the last two years undergoing conservation treatment by the former head of conservation at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Martin Bijl.
The work of the conservator, removing layers of varnish and later paint additions, allowed Ernst van de Wetering, one of the world's leading authorities on Rembrandt, to positively attribute the painting to Rembrandt himself. The Joslyn Art Museum is now displaying "Portrait of Dirck van Os" in a special installation alongside information describing the recent conservation and its new attribution.
We congratulate the Joslyn Museum for undertaking this important work that clearly underscores the benefits of modern technology and scholarship in regard to historical artwork. Further information is available on the museum's website, www.joslyn.org.
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ONLINE EXHIBITION
Classic Navajo Blankets
Classic Third Phase Chief's Blanket with a small central diamond
Navajo, circa 1865
61 inches wide x 54 inches wide
Germantown Third Phase Chief's Blanket
Navajo, circa 1885
55 inches wide by 64 inches long
Runner with storm pattern design
Navajo, circa 1900
36 inches wide by 82 inches long
Double Saddle Blanket with a beige window and a red and brown border
Navajo, circa 1900
36 inches wide by 47 inches long
Double Saddle Blanket with a grey field Navajo, circa 1900 34 inches wide by 54 inches long 
Pictorial Blanket featuring birds and figures
Navajo, circa 1885
56 inches wide by 32 1/2 inches long
For additional information, please call the gallery at 505/982-6100. |
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MUSEUM NEWS NATIONWIDE
San Diego Museum of Art"Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain" Through September 9, 2014 Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain displays paintings by the influential American artist, Robert Henri, who made seven trips to Spain between 1900 and 1926. Henri, (1865-1929) a leader of the artists who became known as "The Eight," excelled as a portrait artist and devoted most of his career to portraying people in a style noted for its spontanaeity and truthfulness. Spanish Sojourns continues this tradition with a dazzling display of his Spanish subjects, from eminent bullfighters and colorful dancers to street singers and peasants. Guest curated by Valerie Ann Leeds, PhD, the exhibit brings together over 40 major paintings from museums and private collections and was organized through Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia. Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO"Across the Indian Country: Photographs by Alexander Gardner, 1867-68" Through January 11, 2015 By the 1860s, the region known as the "American frontier" was quickly changing, due to the major overland movement of settlers during the 1840s and '50s and the forced displacement of the native peoples. The Nelson-Atkins Museum is presenting two series of extremely rare photographs that document this period in American history as a "last look at a rapidly disappearing frontier." The exhibition highlights photographs by Alexander Gardner from two distinct projects: "Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 1867-68" and "Scenes in the Indian County, 1868." Thought to be the earliest photographic survey of Indian life on the Great Plains, Julián Zugazagoitia, Director of the Nelson-Atkins, called the photographs "groundbreaking." He said, "Gardner captured images of Indian life that had rarely, if ever, been photographed. Wrapped in blankets, carrying peace pipes, many of the Indian chiefs were truly interested in peace only to be met with empty promises. These images are poignant and wistful -- documenting the rich culture of a rapidly marginalized Indian population." Nine of the photographs are from the Nelson-Atkins collection; the rest are on loan from various institutions. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue written by the exhibit's curator, Jane L. Aspinwall, "Alexander Gardner: The Western Photographs, 1867-1868."
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NEW MEXICO EXHIBITS & EVENTS
SANTA FE
New Mexico History Museum
"Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography"
Through March 29, 2015
Poetics of Light: Pinhole Photography is an exhibit of original prints by photographers from around the world. The impetus for this exhibit was the recent donation of the entire Pinhole Resource Collection in San Lorenzo, New Mexico, a collection of more than 6,000 photographs, 60 cameras, and hundreds of books.
Pinhole photography has been explored by artists since the 1880s. It is an art form based on a kind of "do-it-yourself" handmade technology: a light-tight box pierced by a hole inside of which is placed a piece of film. At its most basic, pinhole photography is explained as "a means of capturing the way that light plays upon objects under view." This exhibit has on display nearly 225 photographs and 40 cameras providing an interesting look at some very creative methods of picture-taking. For example, cameras on display range from elaborate mechanical devices to reworked everyday objects, such as a powder puff container, Borax can, Campbell's Soup can and Quaker Oats box.
SWAIA: Santa Fe's Annual Indian Market
August 18 to 24, 2014
Sneak Preview of the award-winning art
August 22, 5:30 to 9:30
Santa Fe Convention Center
Indian Market
August 23 and 24, outdoors on the Plaza
Antique American Indian Art Show
Opening night preview and benefit for IAIA - Institute of American Indian Arts
Tuesday, August 19, 6 to 9 p.m.
The Tuesday evening preview party tickets also include admission for the run of the show on Wednesday and Thursday at El Museo Cultural in the Santa Fe Railyard.
For tickets call 505-660-4701
Works of Gustave Baumann at the Governor's Gallery
State Capitol Building, Old Santa Fe Trail
Through September 2, 2014 Illustrated works by Gustave Baumann are on display this summer in the Governor's Gallery, fourth floor of the New Mexico State Capitol. Also showing is a unique "virtual" display of Baumann's marionettes. Created as 3-D models, the puppets were programmed to move as actual marionettes move, with each digital marionette having the same joints and the same potential movements. To continue, click here.
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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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