Although a Santa Fe art colony was not established until 1921, the Santa Fe fine art tradition took root simultaneously with that of Taos. Beginning with the arrival of Carlos Vierra in 1904, artists were drawn to Santa Fe for largely the same reasons as they were to Santa Fe’s more artistically acclaimed neighbor to the north. Before World War I, Vierra was joined by Kenneth Chapman, Olive Rush, Gerald Cassidy, Paul Burlin and, in 1913, by the New York portraitist Orrin Sheldon Parsons.
Once in New Mexico, Parsons found the terrain of New Mexico irresistible. In fact the impact of the dry, pure air and bare landscape was sufficiently strong to change Parsons’ entire style. Parsons gave up portraiture and never again returned to figure painting. His entire focus became the skies, mountains, and soft, pliable adobe architecture of Northern New Mexico. He rendered the contours of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with a soft brush and nearly pastel earth tones. The only intrusions into this scheme were the extreme, sharp tones of red and yellow needed to capture New Mexico in October.
Parsons quickly became a major force in the burgeoning Santa Fe art scene. When the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art was constructed in 1917, Parsons became its first director. He regularly showed his work in the nearby Palace of the Governors galleries alongside that of the many fine artists who spent time in Santa Fe.
Parsons’ career spanned an era. He was born in the same year as Irving Couse, a charter member of the Taos Society of Artists, one year after the end of the Civil War. At his death in September of 1943, abstract expressionism was just beginning in New York City. Through most of these decades Parsons’ style however remained placid, serene, settled and calm, just as he had found the landscape when he first reached New Mexico.
Kang Cho, born in Seoul, South Korea, moved to Chicago as a teenager in 1969. Though Cho displayed a talent for painting from an early age, art was not considered a proper profession in South Korea, and he anticipated training as an engineer or scientist. However, Cho’s schoolteachers in America noticed that the athletic and intelligent boy was an exceptional artist. He received a full scholarship to the American Academy of Art in Chicago.
Cho moved to Denver in 1976, thanks to the encouragement and support of his friend and mentor, painter Bill Sharer. Cho became active in the Denver art community, and he credits the group for influencing his early convictions about art. Artist Ned Jacob, in particular, helped Cho refine his drawing and color techniques. Cho was fortunate in his early career, receiving immediate attention from galleries and collectors. His determination, discipline and dedication to his work led to his longterm success.
Cho’s work has received many awards, including the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Grant International Competition and the Anna Lee Stacey Scholarship Grant National Competition. He paints a wide range subjects – moments in nature and expressions of the human form – with a focus on painting what he sees. Today, Cho lives and paints in Santa Fe, capturing the myriad colors and subtle light of New Mexico.
Dan Ostermiller was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the son of a famed taxidermist. He decided early in his life to forego working in the family business for a more flexible form of self- expression. However, the experience he had gained under his father’s tutelage influenced Ostermiller’s career and was ultimately responsible for his interest in becoming a sculptor of animals as well as for his complete understanding of animal form.
Ostermiller has enlarged the scope of his knowledge of wildlife with expeditions to Alaska, Africa and all corners of the West. Ostermiller’s sculpture conveys a mood and an emotion. Each bronze engages the viewer, encouraging the touch of a hand and inviting further contemplation. “If I have a trademark, it’s the character I put in pieces. I incorporate, I hope, strong design. I give people something they can relate to and a good piece of sculpture.”
Since his first show in 1980, Ostermiller has rapidly achieved professional and public recognition. In 2003, he became president of the National Sculpture Society. His sculpture has won numerous awards and honors and has been included in exhibitions and one-person shows around the country. Included in the noteworthy list is the annual Society of Animal Artists exhibition; the annual National Sculpture Society exhibition; the Eiteljorg Invitational at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Fleischer Museum’s 1994 retrospective exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, recognizing Ostermiller for his exceptional talent and numerous accomplishments.
Clark Hulings’ tranquil compositions reflect the talent and experience of one of the nation’s most respected painters. Hulings captures his subject with impeccable technique; his vibrant paintings glow with remarkable light, color and texture.
As a young child, Hulings lived in Spain. His experiences in that colorful country continue to influence his work, particularly his choice of subject matter. Hulings has traveled in Egypt, Morocco and Mexico, as well as throughout Europe. His preference for painting the rustic and provincial scenes of everyday life is apparent in his beautiful interpretations of the open-air markets, farms and countryside. Hulings spends several months a year traveling and painting, always finding beauty in the simple parts of people’s lives.
Hulings studied with Sigismund Ivanowski and with George Bridgmond at the Art Students League in New York. During this time he began painting delicate still lifes and found a steady demand for his portraiture. After a successful career in illustration, Hulings eventually settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In addition to receiving the coveted Prix de West from The National Academy of Western Art in Oklahoma City in 1973, Hulings has also received three silver and two gold medals from subsequent NAWA competitions. In 1976 he was given a one-person show at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and was presented with the Hall’s Trustees’ Gold Medal for his distinguished contribution to art in the U.S.
Nedra Matteucci Galleries began to represent Clark Hulings in 1989 with an exhibition of 40 field sketches. In 1999 the gallery held an unprecedented one-person show of some thirty-five Hulings paintings. Since then the gallery has proudly showed the work of this remarkable artist on a permanent basis.
Known best for his sleek depictions of Native Americans in bronze and his modernist style, Allan Houser is among the most acclaimed twentieth-century sculptors of the Southwest. He was a respected teacher and artist considered by many as the patriarch of contemporary Native American sculptors.
Of Chiricahua Apache descent, Allan Houser (originally Haozous) grew up in a world of farming and ranching, rich with the Apache heritage of his people as taught through the songs and stories of his father. Encouraged by his father to obtain a formal education, Houser studied art, specifically painting, at the Santa Fe Indian Art School with Dorothy Dunn.
His paintings, which were infused with his Native American background, earned him national recognition. In 1939 Houser produced murals for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, and the New York World’s Fair, which led to his work as a WPA muralist. He soon after began working in the sculptural medium, following the suggestion of his muralist mentor, Olle Nordmark, His first public sculptural work was a 1948 commission from the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas.
From the early 1950s until his retirement from academic life in 1975, Houser taught at various institutions in the Southwest; his first solo exhibition was presented at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
Houser’s work can be found at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and in numerous major museum collections throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Additionally, Houser’s Offering of the Sacred Pipe is on display at United States Mission to the United Nations in New York City.
Dan Ostermiller was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the son of a famed taxidermist. He decided early in his life to forego working in the family business for a more flexible form of self- expression. However, the experience he had gained under his father’s tutelage influenced Ostermiller’s career and was ultimately responsible for his interest in becoming a sculptor of animals as well as for his complete understanding of animal form.
Ostermiller has enlarged the scope of his knowledge of wildlife with expeditions to Alaska, Africa and all corners of the West. Ostermiller’s sculpture conveys a mood and an emotion. Each bronze engages the viewer, encouraging the touch of a hand and inviting further contemplation. “If I have a trademark, it’s the character I put in pieces. I incorporate, I hope, strong design. I give people something they can relate to and a good piece of sculpture.”
Since his first show in 1980, Ostermiller has rapidly achieved professional and public recognition. In 2003, he became president of the National Sculpture Society. His sculpture has won numerous awards and honors and has been included in exhibitions and one-person shows around the country. Included in the noteworthy list is the annual Society of Animal Artists exhibition; the annual National Sculpture Society exhibition; the Eiteljorg Invitational at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Fleischer Museum’s 1994 retrospective exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, recognizing Ostermiller for his exceptional talent and numerous accomplishments.
Gary Niblett was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, a town located in the middle of vast ranch lands where familiarity with cowboys and cattle are a part of every child’s heritage. He revealed his artistic talents at an early age by painting commissioned portraits of the local ranchers’ horses. In 1963 after attending Eastern New Mexico University, Niblett moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the Art Center College of Design. In order to finance his studies, Niblett took a job as a background artist with the Hanna-Barbera animation studios. He developed his skills and knowledge of lighting and color as well as design and composition. After eight years he left the studios to pursue a career as an artist.
Niblett’s distinctive style has grown out of his fondness for the Western way of life, especially that of the cowboy. As a boy, Niblett helped round up and brand cattle on ranches. He gained a respect for and working knowledge of life on the range, which is reflected in his vivid narratives of the West.
At thirty-three, Niblett became the youngest member ever elected to the prestigious art organization, the Cowboy Artists of America. This same organization awarded Niblett the silver medal for oil painting in 1977 and the gold medal for watercolor in 1991. He is also a member of the Santa Fe Watercolor Society and the National Academy of Western Artists (now Pre de West). In 1990 Niblett was honored by being chosen the Distinguished Calendar Artist by New Mexico Magazine.
Niblett’s paintings have been exhibited extensively in the United States, England, France, Germany, Japan and at the 1981 American Western Art Exhibition in Beijing, China.
Oscar E. Berninghaus began his career in his native St. Louis as a commercial lithographer. In 1899, as a reward for his hard work in taking night classes at Washington University and at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, he was given a month’s paid vacation and provided with free passage to the West by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. While visiting Taos, Berninghaus met Bert Phillips, who became a lifelong friend, and was inspired to join the new Taos artist colony.
Berninghaus established a seasonal rhythm based on his family’s needs, spending winters in St. Louis pursuing a successful career as a commercial artist and summers in Taos painting the Native Americans, their horses and the landscape. These candid paintings of Taos earned him great respect among the other artists. Though residing in St. Louis, he became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915 and sent his paintings on tour with their traveling exhibitions. Successful accounts, especially Anheuser-Busch, allowed him to settle in Taos permanently in 1925.
Berninghaus received the 1924 Ranger Fund Prize and the 1926 Second Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design. He also belonged to the National Society of Mural Painters and the Salmagundi Club. His beautifully rendered paintings offer a vision of Taos of unusual freshness and sincerity.
Taos landscape painter, Chris Morel, left his home state of Maryland a few years after graduating from art school and headed for Austin, Texas. The Maryland art market in the mid 80s was not strong, and Morel believed that the art world of Austin would allow him to become a full-time fine artist. He found work as an illustrator for the Texas Park and Wildlife Department, where he worked for several years. By 1990 Morel was able to open his own studio, began painting full time and started to sell his water color and oil works in retail galleries.
In 1994 Morel moved to Ranchos de Taos in northern New Mexico. He learned the craft of plein aire painting. His subject matter felt the influence of the high desert as well. His preferred material at present is the mountain valleys of New Mexico, their plant life and the adobe structures of those who live there.
Morel’s work has been recognized by many fine art institutions in the West. He has shown at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, at the Albuquerque Museum and at Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum. His work has been featured as well in numerous fine art publications including Southwest Art, American Art Collector and International Artist.
Being blind makes the pace of life slower; you can’t walk fast or grab for things quickly. Life is more gentle and soft and the change brought my creative energies out. — Michael Naranjo
In 1968, after just a few months in Vietnam, Michael Naranjo was blinded by a grenade. While recuperating in the hospital in Japan, the wounded 23-year-old asked a volunteer for some modeling clay. He’d lost the use of his right hand; with his left, he sculpted a small figure and began his career as a sculptor.
The clay recalled a childhood pastime for Naranjo: sitting with his mother, Rose, a well-known potter, and modeling small animals. Naranjo, a Tewa Indian, lived in the Santa Clara Pueblo until the age of nine, when his father accepted the pastorship at the Baptist Indian Mission in Taos. As one of ten children, Naranjo enjoyed the New Mexican wilderness with his siblings, exploring the land and hunting with his older brother.
Naranjo’s sculptures often feature the narratives of his childhood: native dances, eagles and buffalo, women carrying water. But his work is wide-ranging — he sculpts mythical creatures, such as mermaids and centaurs, as well as cherubs and nudes. The forms he creates are simple and bold, but the surfaces have a varied texture that viewers are encouraged to touch.
For over 40 years, Naranjo has sculpted stories from clay, using his left hand and no tools. He has received many awards for his unique and striking bronzes, and his work is included in collections in the Heard Museum, the White House, and the Vatican.
