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McAfee, Ila (1897 - 1995)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:15,000.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
McAfee, Ila (1897 - 1995)
<strong>McAfee, Ila </strong>
(1897 - 1995)

<strong>Ghost Ranch, Kitchen Rock, 1977</strong>

oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches
signed lower left: <i>Ila McAfee</i>

A native of Colorado, Ila Mae McAfee was born 1897 and studied art at Western State College in
Gunnison. She was a student at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design in
New York and was exposed to the vibrant strain of modernism that was on the rise in the 1920s. She married a fellow artist, Elmer Turner, and the couple moved to Taos in 1928. McAfee was a prolific and accomplished muralist, easel painter, textile designer, and illustrator.

In her seminal book on the artists of Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan commented, “Ila McAfee has a
profound understanding of animals and a most keen observation. Her horses are individuals imbued with the strong coursing bloodstream that enlivens their days. Her portraits of horses are so recognizable that one knows the originals when one sees them.” In addition to her signature horses, McAfee produced prints, drawings, watercolors and oils of a variety of southwestern wildlife. Her painting <i>Ghost Ranch, Kitchen Rock</i> depicts pronghorn antelope grazing amongst the dramatic cliffs and buttes that Georgia O’Keeffe helped to make famous.—DC


Provenance:
Private Collection, New Mexico

Literature:
Mabel Dodge Luhan, <i>Taos and its Artists,</i> New York, New York: Duell, Sloan and
Pearce, 1947
Patricia Trenton et al, <i>Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945,</i> Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: The Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with the University of California Press, 1995