In the late 1800s and early 1900s, as travel across the country became easier with railways and cars, artists began to trek farther from the urban art centers like New York City and Philadelphia in search of new subject matter. Over time artists gathered in select towns year after year across the country. These smaller towns, often surrounded by beautiful scenery, interesting people, and communities that were welcoming toward artists, became known as art colonies.
Taos Society of Artists
The town of Taos, a small Hispanic agricultural community a few miles from the thousand-year-old Taos Pueblo, was the first town in New Mexico to harbor an art colony. Artists were drawn by its cultural diversity as well as its beautiful surroundings.
The first formal art association in the Southwest was the Taos Society of Artists, founded in 1915 to organize sales and exhibitions of the works of its members. The Society circulated exhibitions to major cities, and its fame was further enhanced by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. The railroad commissioned members of the Taos Society of Artists to paint pictures for display in ticket offices and to be reproduced on tickets, calendars, dining car menus, and posters promoting travel in the Southwest.
Ernest Blumenschein was one of the most influential members of the Taos Society of Artists. Blumenschein was a musician as well as a painter, and his objective was to bring every natural and man-made element in a composition into perfect harmony. Like Ernest Blumenschein, Walter Ufer often incorporated into his work realistic elements that represent the clash and combination of cultures in the Southwest.
Santa Fe Art Colony
Santa Fe was not far behind in establishing itself as an art colony. On the route of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway line, it was easier to access than Taos. In the 1910s the small city also started actively courting artists, offering free studio and exhibition space to artists who visited from the eastern US.
One artist who ventured to the Santa Fe art colony early on was John Sloan. Already an illustrator and painter in New York, Sloan enjoyed painting the people and places of New Mexico, in a lighter color palette than seen his New York works.
