'Painters in the Valley' a guide to the artists that have called sa国际传媒官网网页入口 home
As a hobby, sa国际传媒官网网页入口 resident Carl A. Hanson would go to thrift stores and estate sales looking for bargain works of art.
鈥淚 kept spotting paintings selling cheap,鈥� Hanson said in a phone interview, 鈥渂ut I didn鈥檛 know who the artists were.鈥�
About 15 years ago, what had been a hobby grew into a minor project with the help of late sa国际传媒官网网页入口 art appraiser Jack D鈥橝mbrosio.
鈥淛ack spurred my recognizing the need for a reference tool that would provide biographical entries on the hundreds of sa国际传媒官网网页入口 area artists active since the 19th century,鈥� Hanson wrote in acknowledgement.
That reference tool grew into his reference book titled 鈥淧ainters in the Valley: A Biographical Dictionary of sa国际传媒官网网页入口, New Mexico Area Artists 鈥� 1880-1990.鈥�
Hanson said D鈥橝mbrosio passed along to him obscure ephemera and used his appraiser鈥檚 knowledge to answer Hanson鈥檚 many questions about sa国际传媒官网网页入口 artists.
Hanson also took D鈥橝mbrosio鈥檚 suggestion to contact famous local artist and art teacher Frank McCulloch.
He took D鈥橝mbrosio鈥檚 advice. McCulloch, who died last year, helped Hanson expand his focus 鈥渇rom gathering names to writing biographical entries.鈥�
Hanson wrote a lengthy introduction for the book. He said that it serves to give historical context to the artists, their art and the art community infrastructure.
An artist identified in the introduction 鈥� as well as in an entry 鈥� is Gerald Cassidy, who resided in sa国际传媒官网网页入口 for about nine years starting in 1899. Cassidy moved to Denver, then relocated to Santa Fe.
Among other turn-of-the-century Duke City painters named in the introduction were Joseph Imhof and Emma Albright. Another artist, Carl Redin, was a Swedish 茅migr茅 who moved to sa国际传媒官网网页入口 for health reasons in 1916.
Redin, according to the introduction, was an early tenant of the restored Casa de Armijo, a residential/commercial compound in Old Town in the 鈥�30s. The casa became sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 鈥渋nformal answer鈥� to artist associations in Taos and Santa Fe, Hanson wrote, as well as the occasional home 鈥� or close neighbor 鈥� for such artists as William Lumpkins, Esquipula Romero de Romero and Carl Von Hassler.
The introduction discusses other artists who settled later in the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 area. Among them was Raymond Jonson, an abstractionist who had moved to the city in 1947 after having settled in Santa Fe years earlier. Jonson cofounded the Transcendental Painting Group.
Soon after World War II, artists from California moved to sa国际传媒官网网页入口 to teach and/or to paint. The 鈥渋nvaders鈥� included Harry Nadler, Florence Pierce, Richard Diebenkorn, Clinton Adams, Garo Antreasian and Patrick Nagatani.
In the 1960s, new galleries sprang up that exhibited representational art by local artists. Hanson notes that one gallery, Galeria del Sol, was founded by four female artists 鈥� Betty Sabo, Pat Harrison, Jane Mabry and Carol McIlroy.
One entry refers to Ralph Berkowitz, who moved to sa国际传媒官网网页入口 in 1958. For decades, he was known widely as a classical pianist, an accompanist, a music teacher and an arts administrator. The entry said that in the 鈥�70s, Berkowitz began painting, in watercolors and pastels, and created drawings, collages and woodcuts.
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, which opened in 1976, showcased the work of Native American artists, among them Pablita Velarde, Helen Hardin and Jose Rey Toledo.
In the 1970s, sa国际传媒官网网页入口 artist Wilson Hurley began receiving national acclaim for his large panoramic landscapes, Hanson wrote.
Nearly all of the biographical entries contain artists鈥� place and date of birth, where they studied, the medium or media they painted in, what art awards they received, what local galleries, museums and/or organization-sponsored shows artists exhibited in, when they lived in the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 area and in other cities, and the sources for that information.
Early on in his research, Hanson thought the number of biographical entries would total 100 and that it would likely take a year to compile.
鈥淭he longer I looked, the more I found. It grew like topsy. I didn鈥檛 know there were that many people of talent who hadn鈥檛 gotten noticed, who were not hardly known at all,鈥� he said.
By Hanson鈥檚 count, the book has almost 1,000 entries.
Hanson wrote in the book鈥檚 preface that before he began gathering names of artists, he needed to define the 鈥渟a国际传媒官网网页入口 area.鈥�
He decided on these boundaries 鈥� San Felipe and Zia pueblos to the north; Laguna Pueblo to the west; Isleta Pueblo and Belen to the south; and Tijeras, Cedar Crest and Placitas to the east.
Next, the author wrote that he had to define what painting meant. He 鈥渂roadly construed鈥� the word to include media such as oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, pastel, encaustic, tempura and mixed-media, as well as painted metal, wall hangings, batiks, lithographs, serigraphs, woodcuts, murals and other 鈥減ainterly鈥� media.
Near the back of the book is an appendix with biographical sketches of 12 artists who settled in the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 area after 1990.
Perhaps the most famous of that dozen is Judy Chicago, known for her large collaborative art installations. Chicago and her husband, photographer Donald Woodman, bought and moved into the historic Belen Hotel in 1996. However, Hanson wrote, Chicago had in fact come to sa国际传媒官网网页入口 in 1972 as the recipient of a fellowship at the Tamarind Institute.
Hanson, 79, is a historian whose specialty is Portuguese history.
