Continuum: The Ascent of the Modern

Between the wars, the enormous import of the 1913 Armory Show begins to be felt among Taos artists coming to terms with the ascendance of two parallel modernist currents--one espousing a Cubist approach to space exemplified by Andrew Dasburg, and the other embracing a reliance on expressive form mediated by intensely subjective color, represented by John Marin and Marsden Hartley.

Yet common to the interwar Taos artists in both camps is an acute personal expression born of the region’s exotic isolation, and provoked by the enormous presence of the landscape, constantly yielding work in both styles that sought to reconcile a conscious exploration of Cubist structure or Expressionist form with the landscape, pueblo, and town’s inherent recourse to representation.

Exhibition list of Continuum in the Ellis-Clark gallery:

1      Emil Bisttram
Untitled, 1933
Pastel on paper
Courtesy of the Taos Municipal School Historic Collection
L2012-1(12)
 
2      Emil Bisttram           
Untitled Abstraction, 1952
Oil on canvas
Isabeth Hardy in memory of Mayrion and EJ Bisttram
1992.0010.0000
 
3      Ted Egri
Sunset Through an Artist's Eye, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Taos Municipal School Historic Collection
L2012-1(34)
 
4      Paul H. Burlin
Untitled, c. 1918
Oil on board
M.A. Healy Family Foundation Purchase Fund 
1995.0024.0000
 
5      Cady Wells    
Rocks In Landscape, 1940s
Watercolor and gouache on paper
Museum Purchase
2011.0054.0000
 
6      Clifton King
Portrait of Spud Johnson, c. 1925
Oil on canvas
Gift of Narcissa King
1982.0004.0000
 
7      Louis Ribak
Penitente, 1956
Oil on board
Gift of Mandelman-Ribak Foundation
2010.0007.0000
 
8      Willard Nash
Female Nude, c. 1930
Lithograph   
Anonymous Gift
2011.0045.0032
 
9      Howard Cook
Cumberland Girl, 1937
Lithograph
Gift of Ted and Kit Egri
1991.0006.0000
 
10   Cady Wells
Taos Mountain, 1930s
Watercolor on paper
M.A. Healy Family Foundation Purchase Fund
1995.0029.0000
 
11   Thomas Benrimo
Untitled, 1946
Mixed media
Copyright of the Artists' Estate
T2016.13
 
12   Thomas Benrimo
Night, 1950s
Charcoal and pastel on paper
M.A. Healy Family Foundation Purchase Fund
1995.0039.0000
 
13   Andrew Dasburg       
Winter Plains, 1959
Pastel on paper
Anonymous Gift
1995.0019.0000
 
14   Morris Graves
The Cliff, 1944
Watercolor and gouache on paper mounted on canvas
Gift of Millicent A. Rogers
1980.0260.0000
 
15   Rebecca James
Winter in Taos (Brown Bear's Tooth and Honey Locust Thorn), 1948
Reverse oil on glass
Gift of the Artist
1980.0275.0000
 
16   Victor Higgins
Untitled (Harwood House), c. 1940
Watercolor on paper
Collection of the Harwood Museum of Art
1980.0233.0000
 
17   Victor Higgins
Canyon Landscapes, c. 1932
Watercolor on paper
Gift of Lucy Case Harwood
1980.0271.0000
 
18   Elmer Turner
Cottonwoods in the Canyon, 1928
Oil on canvas
Gift of the Artist
1980.0331.0000
 
19   Beatrice Mandelman
Untitled, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Taos Municipal School Historic Collection
L2012-1(61)
 
20   Howard Cook
Taos Mountain, North Side, 1957
Oil on canvas
Gift of the Artist
1980.0239.0000
 
21   Louis Ribak
Landscape, c. 1947
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Harwood Museum of Art, Gift of Mabel Dodge Luhan
1980.0315.0000
 
22   Leo Garel
Untitled, c. 1949
Oil on canvas
M.A. Healy Family Foundation Purchase Fund 
1993.0005.0000
 
23   Louis Ribak
Sentinel No. 2, 1950s
Oil on canvas
Gift of the Mandelman-Ribak Foundation
2010.0017.0021