Taos Art Museum

• Illustration — 'The Rains Across' by Ralph Waldo Emerson Meyers, c. 1919. The Museum's permanent collection features Nicolai Fechin's House and Studio. These architectural masterpieces united Fechin’s artistic sensibilities and architectural skills combining Russian, Native American, Spanish, and Art Deco styles. The permanent collection includes works by Fechin and members of the Taos Society of Artists. Nearly all members are represented, including Joseph Henry Sharp, Bert Geer Phillips, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Ernest L. Blumenschein, Walter Ufer, E. Irving Couse, W. Herbert Dunton, Joseph Fleck, Ernest Martin Hennings, William Victor Higgins, Catherine Critcher, Gustave Baumann, Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, and Julius Rolshoven. The vitality of the Taos art colony, catalyzed by TSA members and other artists represented in the collection such as Leon Gaspard, Joseph Imhoff, Gene Kloss, Ila Mae McAfee, and Dorothy Brett, was sustained in the 1940s by the Taos Moderns. Deeply influenced by the Great Depression and the turbulent currents of Modernism, these artists included Andrew Dasburg, Louis Leon Ribak, Beatrice Mandelman, Emil Bisttram, Howard Cook, Cliff Harmon, and Ward Lockwood, who are represented. Following World War II, Taos became a crossroads in contemporary American art, combining the influences of American and European Modernism and the bright light, exceptional landscapes, and cultural diversity of the region that inspired generations of artists such as Rod Goebel, Walt Gonske, Jackson Hensley, Charles Stewart, Julian Robles, and R.C. Gorman.