Matthews Gallery

Extra extra! Great review for our New Landscapes, New Vistas show. Read about women artists of New Mexico, and then view all of the artwork in the exhibition here.

Visitors to Spaceport America in New Mexico are now greeted by Genesis, a new monumental sculpture at the entrance to the commercial spaceport. Created by artist Otto Rigan, the 40-foot-tall semi-circular metal sculpture mirrors the night sky over New Mexico with a pattern of glass “stars” whose arrangement is based on a night sky star chart. More great New Mexico sculpture.

We’re ending our SPRING OF MODERNISM blog series with the tale of a pioneering artist who was the model of a New Mexico modernist. Randall Davey (1887-1964) was born in East Orange, New Jersey. His father was an architect, and he enrolled at Cornell for architecture in 1905. Three years later he dropped out and moved to New York to study art, to the consternation of his father... More.

Paul Burlin, Untitled (Pivot), 1952, Oil on Canvas.

“Paul Burlin was the first Armory Show participant to reach New Mexico, and that fact, coupled with his confident handling of local subject matter, made a definite impression on newcomers [Marsden] Hartley and B.J.O. Nordfeldt…”

More.

In art movements: 

A small group of New Mexico artists including Raymond Jonson, Emil Bisttram, and William Lumpkins formed the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) in 1938. The collective was inspired by early abstract artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, as well as Theosophy, Zen Buddhism and Dynamic Symmetry. Their goal was to validate and promote abstract art by transcending their senses to explore spiritual realms. The group organized lectures, published articles and mounted exhibitions in New Mexico, San Francisco and New York. Alfred Morang was not a founding member of the group, but he acted as their press secretary for a number of years. An excerpt from Morang’s November 4, 1938 article “Transcendental Foundation Plans Extensive Activities” in the Santa Fe New Mexican:

Learn more. 

"Question: Who’d you rather have a marguerita with? Georgia O’Keeffe or Alfred Morang?" That's the beginning of Tom Collins' lovely review of the MORANG AND FRIENDS exhibition in today's Albuquerque Journal North.

More here. 

Snow scenes by New Mexico artists Gene Kloss, Gustave Baumann and E. Martin Hennings. 

Source: New Mexico Museum of Art

More New Mexico art history here. 

Santa Fe artist Alfred Morang (1901-1958) was more than just a regular at El Farol. He loved the legendary Canyon Road restaurant so much that he filled the walls of its bar with beautiful murals of dancing ladies and Southwestern vistas.

More here. 

Datus E. Myers, New Mexico Landscape, Oil on Canvas. 

Datus Ensign Myers (1879-1960) was a prominent member of the Santa Fe Art Colony. More here. 

Okay, ya'll. If you love art and live in Santa Fe, this event is for you! This Friday, we're offering a free behind-the-scenes peek at the gallery world.

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Look/See

Attend our free COLLECTOR'S FORUM workshops to get a peek at the inside workings of the art world. Info here.

Image: Pioneering Taos modernist Beatrice Mandelman in her studio, 1950.

When John Sloan invited Beatrice Mandelman and Louis Ribak to visit Santa Fe in 1944, the two artists were on the rise among New York City’s avant-garde. They had ties to Hans Hoffman and Fernand Leger, and were often mentioned in the same breath as Jackson Pollock. Sloan, who had been summering in New Mexico for years, had a reputation for spiriting away his favorite artists to the Desert Southwest. During their trip the recently married duo took a train to Taos and decided to stay.

The move marked a radical change in Mandelman and Ribak’s artwork. “We had to start all over again,” Mandelman said. “We spent the first couple years painting landscapes.” They were known for their figurative paintings in New York, but in this radically different environment their focus shifted to pure abstraction. They were trailblazers for a new wave of artists called the Taos Moderns, a movement that enlivened the Taos art colony but enraged an older vanguard of academic painters with ties to the Taos Society of Artists of the 1910’s and 20’s. To this tight clique of romanticists, the newcomers stuck out like colorful cacti—particularly Mandelman.

Read more.

Dispatch from the gallery. A journalist at large in Santa Fe's famed gallery district.

More here.

One question contemporary realist painters often get is, “Why not simply take a photograph?” Eric G. Thompson, a self-taught artist who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, answered this familiar assault with brio the other evening at the opening of his show at Matthews Gallery in Santa Fe (669 Canyon Road). He explained that what photographs can’t replicate is the energy contained in a painting. Thompson’s aim—to “capture an emotion in time”—expresses itself in every well-placed brushstroke he applies to the canvas.

Read more from Weekly Alibi.

The Houston Chronicle went 'cool hunting' in Santa Fe, and we made their must-see list!

Check it out.

Photo credit: Houston Chronicle

Beatrice Mandelman, Clear Light, Casein with Collage on Masonite Panel 

circa 1950s

Taos modernist Beatrice Mandelman (1912-1998) was close friends with Agnes Martin. She had a successful career as a Social Realist painter in New York before moving to New Mexico and switching to abstraction. Her bright, delicate palette was influenced by the intensity of the New Mexico sunlight. 

See this painting up close.