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Blumenschein, E.L. (1874 - 1960)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:40,000.00 USD Estimated At:40,000.00 - 50,000.00 USD
Blumenschein, E.L. (1874 - 1960)
<strong>Blumenschein, E.L. </strong>
(1874 - 1960)

<strong>Canyon Scene, ca. 1929</strong>

oil on canvas mounted on board
12 x 16 inches
signed lower left: <i>.Blumy.</i>
inscribed on portion of original backing (attached to verso): <i>TO MAGGIE MARGARET / FROM BLUMY - TAOS NM. / FEB, 1929</i>

A seminal figure in the Taos Society of Artists, Ernest L. Blumenschein was one of the
participants (along with Bert Phillips) in the now legendary 1898 incident of the broken wagon
wheel that led to the eventual establishment of Taos as a significant art colony. Blumenschein was born in Pittsburgh and, like many of his Taos colleagues, grew up in the Midwest in a family of modest means. But unlike many of the Taos Society members, Blumenschein enjoyed a direct
artistic influence in his home: his father was the director of the Dayton (Ohio) Phillharmonic
Symphony. Blumenschein pursued his art studies at the Cincinnati Art Academy, the Art Students League in New York, and the Academie Julian in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Bert Phillips and Joseph Henry Sharp in 1894. Having visited Taos the previous year, Sharp whetted his fellow students' interest with stories about the remote New Mexico town.

Blumenschein was one of the most sophisticated and experimental painters of the Taos Society, and his works often show strong modernist tendencies and an occasionally startling degree of abstraction. His large canvases are some of the undisputed masterpieces of the classic Taos genre, but he executed many small, informal works as well, often painting en plein air on pieces
of board. <i>Canyon Scene</i> is one such painting. Although it is not assigned a title with a proper place name, its high degree of finish and the fact that it is signed (with the informal nickname "Blumy") suggest that Blumenschein considered it a completed work unto itself.


Provenance:
Carl Dentzel Collection
Phoenix Art Museum
Private Collection, New Mexico

Literature:
Mabel Dodge Luhan, <i>Taos and its Artists,</i> New York, New York: Duell, Sloan and
Pearce, 1947
Laura M. Bickerstaff, <i>Pioneer Artists of Taos,</i> Denver, Colorado: Old West Publishing Co., 1983 (revised edition)
Porter, Ebie and Campbell, <i>Taos Artists and Their Patrons 1898-1950,</i> University of Notre Dame, The Snite Museum of Art, 1999