Georgina Klitgaard

"Pueblo Indians, Taos, New Mexico" Georgina Klitgaard, Modernist Figures

Mid 20th Century

Eugene Higgins In Foreign Parts, circa 1913 Signed lower right Watercolor on paper Sight 17 x 13 inches Born William Victor Higgins in 1884 to a Shelbyville, Indiana farm family where the only art Victor was aware of as a child was his father's love of flowers. "He loved their forms and their colors, and he tended his garden as a painter might work a canvas." At the age of nine, Victor met a young artist who traveled the Indiana countryside painting advertisements on the sides of barns. He purchased paints and brushes so the young Higgins could practice his own artwork on the inside of his father's barn. He also taught Victor about art museums and especially about the new Chicago Art Institute. This information never left the young artist, and he saved his allowance until his father allowed him at the age of fifteen to attend Chicago Art Institute. He worked a variety of jobs to finance his studies both there and at the Academy of Fine Arts. Victor Higgins traveled to New York in 1908, where he met Robert Henri, who became a significant influence by depicting every-day scenes and stressing the importance of the spirit and sense of place as important factors in painting. Higgins was also greatly affected by the New York Armory Modernism Show of Marsden Hartley in 1913. While Victor Higgins was in Chicago he met former mayor and avid collector Carter H. Harrison who was to prove instrumental in the growth of Higgins career for several years. Harrison agreed to support Higgins for four years to go to Paris and Munich and paint and study in the great museums in Europe. While at the Academie de la Grande Chaumier in Paris (1910-1914) he met Walter Ufer, who was another Chicago artist being sponsored by Carter Harrison. This meeting was not only a life-long friendship, but the beginning of a great change in the way Higgins looked at "American" art. He decided that America needed it's own authentic style rather than the 19th Century classic style he was taught in Europe. Very soon after returning to Chicago in 1914, Harrison sent him and Walter Ufer on a painting trip to Taos, New Mexico for a year in exchange for paintings. Higgins made other similar agreements and was able to support himself with his painting. This trip was a life-changing experience and introduced Higgins to the authentic America he had been looking for. In 1914 Taos was an isolated village about twelve hours from Santa Fe on an impossible dirt road. But the colorful life of the pueblo people and the natural beauty drew a collection of artists who became the Taos art colony, from which the Taos Society of Artists was founded in 1915. Victor Higgins became a permanent resident within a year of his arrival and a member of the society in 1917, exhibiting with Jane Peterson in 1925 and with Wayman Adams and Janet Scudder in 1927. The members would travel around the country introducing the Southwest scenes with great success. He remained a member until the Society's dissolution in 1927. Higgins was the youngest member of the group of seven. Other members were Joseph Henry Sharp, Bert Phillips...

Georgina Klitgaard Arroyo Seco, New Mexico Signed lower right Oil on canvas 28 x 42 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign a...

Pablita Velarde Two Pueblo Dancers, Santa Clara, 1993 Signed and dated lower right Casein on paper 7 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches Provenance Adobe Gallery, New Mexico Private Collection, Texa...

Alice Coutts A Tesuque Indian and Baby, New Mexico, circa 1910 Signed lower left Oil on canvas 20 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches Provenance Scott Tevis, Santa Barbara, California A native of...

Harvey Gregory Prusheck (Slovenian/American, 1887-1940) Adobe Homes, New Mexico Oil on board Signed lower right 14 x 17 inches 19.5 x 22.5 inches, framed Harvey Gregory Prusheck was...

This evocative vintage oil painting from the 1930s–1940s by Denver modernist Paul K. Smith beautifully depicts a classic adobe church in New Mexico, likely insp...

Mid-day, Zuni Village, 1897 By. Frank Reed Whiteside (American, 1866-1929) Unframed: 20" x 30" Framed: 28" x 38" Frank Reed Whiteside, born in Philadelphia on 20 August 1867, became a student of Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1888-92). He already began exhibiting there during his student years (1887-98). In 1893, he enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris where he received instruction from Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. After his French academic training, Whiteside taught art in Philadelphia high schools. He took frequent trips to the Southwest between 1890 and 1928 to live with and paint the Zuni Indians. Whiteside depicted ceremonial dances, Zuni buildings, and other genre scenes, usually in blinding afternoon sunlight. He carefully observed the effects of light on vibrant color, using a finely crafted impressionist technique. He was fond of broad areas of color, subtle combinations of hues, and simplified shapes and silhouettes. Whiteside continued to exhibit at the PAFA (1905-15), at the Art Institute of Chicago (1896-1916), at the Carnegie International (1905 and 1907) and at the Corcoran Gallery (1907). He was a member of Philadelphia art societies and beginning in 1909 had a summer studio in Ogunquit, Maine, where he took part in Hamilton Easter Field's discussion groups. Frank's wife, Clara Walker Whiteside, who published Touring New England in 1926, was active in the Ogunquit Art Association. Like Stanford White, Frank Reed Whiteside was the victim of murder, on 19 September 1929, but Whiteside's case remains unsolved. One night, the sixty-three year-old painter answered the doorbell. Two witnesses...

Taos Pueblo Screen print in colors, c. 1945 Signed and titled in pencil by the artist Printed in Taos Taos is the oldest continually inhabited city/village in North America. How old ...