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E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956) Oil on Canvas

Currency:USD Category:Art / General - Paintings Start Price:400,000.00 USD Estimated At:500,000.00 - 700,000.00 USD
E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956) Oil on Canvas
E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956), Riders in the Sage, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, signed lower left.

According to Patricia Broder, “Henning’s most successful canvases are those in which he interwove the threads of landscape and figure forms. His special talent lay in this ability to integrate human figures and natural forms into a single aesthetic creation. Silhouettes of standing and seated figures, tree trunks, branches, foliage, sage, and underbrush, adobe buildings, woodland paths, and the river’s edge ? all are interdependent forms. …These decorative compositions greatly resemble brightly woven tapestries. Portrait and landscape are fused into a harmonious whole that proclaims the beauty and the vitality of life in Taos.”

Riders in the Sage was part of the personal collection of Dr. T. W. Williams, a physician from West Texas, and long-time director of the West-Texas Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Williams had a particular interest in art portraying Native Americans as he himself was of American Indian descent on his maternal side. Born in 1900 in Kemp, Texas, Dr. Williams attended Southwestern University at Georgetown and Baylor Medical School. He began practicing medicine in Haskell, Texas in the 1930s. During this time he began traveling to New Mexico in the summer and continued to visit each summer throughout his lifetime. He and his young family travelled about and spent several summers vacationing in a cabin outside of Taos, during which time he befriended the group of artists living there and began a collection of their artwork. He continued to be a patron of the artists of New Mexico over the course of his lifetime.

Provenance: The Artist. Dr. T.W. Williams Sr., Haskell Texas, 1930s. Present owners, by descent.

In every picture I expect the fundamentals to be observed, which I term ? Draftsmanship, design, form, thythm, color. Art must of necessity be the artist’s own reaction to nature ~ E. Martin Hennings