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Picuris Mountain (Near Taos) by Ernest L. Blumenschein / American Art
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Picuris Mountain (Near Taos)

ca. 1940 Ernest L. Blumenschein Born: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1874 Died: Albuquerque, New Mexico 1960 oil on canvas 10 1/4 x 25 3/8 in. (26.1 x 64.4 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Arvin Gottlieb 1993.48.3 Smithsonian American Art Museum
4th Floor, Luce Foundation Center



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Picuris Mountain (Near Taos)



“I am wildly enthusiastic over my surroundings. Everything about me is inspiring me to work. Great mountain ranges that become as clear to one as a friend, landscapes, big and beautiful, deserts reflecting a vast sky, and you feel you are part of it all and are never alone.” Ernest Blumenschein, 1901 letter, quoted in Paintings of the American Southwest, The Arvin Gottlieb Collection, brochure, National Museum of American Art, 1995


Ernest Blumenschein began his career as a commercial illustrator but was best known as a painter of the Southwest. He moved to Taos, New Mexico, permanently in 1919 at the age of forty-five. Taos was a haven for artists who were tired of the pressures of the New York and Chicago art worlds and the gritty urban environment. They flocked to New Mexico hoping to find an “authentic” American landscape and people. (Eldredge et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945: Paths to Taos and Santa Fe, 1986) Blumenschein’s vibrant paintings of the landscape capture his enthusiasm for his new home. The cool blues and whites of Picuris Mountain leap out of the canvas and create a sense of the dry, clean desert air while the pulsating reds and browns of the foreground convey the heat of scorching sun.

For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.


Keywords

Landscape - mountain - Picuris Mountain

Landscape - New Mexico

painting

paint - oil

fabric - canvas

About Ernest L. Blumenschein

Born: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1874 Died: Albuquerque, New Mexico 1960

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Ernest L. Blumenschein

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