Conversations with Curators: Rethinking W. Herbert "Buck" Dunton

Join us for the first in a series of Conversations with Curators as we welcome Betsy Fahlman, Adjunct Curator of American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, and co-curator of William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West.

It has been more than thirty since the last major publication appeared on this important Taos painter’s work, and this new traveling exhibition and catalogue are a welcome opportunity to reassess his career. Fahlman’s talk will consider how Dunton’s work reflects both traditional ideas of gender and that adventurous creature, the “New Woman.”

Betsy Fahlman, PhD, a professor of art history at Arizona State University, where she has taught since 1988. She did her undergraduate work at Mount Holyoke College, and graduate work at the University of Delaware, where she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees. A specialist in American Art, her interests include public art, American modernism, the New Deal, industrial archeology, and the art history of Arizona. Her books include “Kraushaar Galleries: Celebrating 125 Years” (2010), “New Deal Art in Arizona” (2009), “Wonders of Work and Labor: The Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art” (2008), “James Graham & Sons: A Century and a Half in the Art Business” (2007), “Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth’s Late Paintings of Lancaster” (2007) and “Guy Pène du Bois: Painter of Modern Life” (2004).

This project is supported in part by New Mexico Humanities Council and New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

(Left) W. Herbert Dunton, Romaldita, c. 1922. Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas, Bequest of Nelda C. Stark, 1999, 31.21.401. (Right) Image courtesy of Arizona State University.