Ernest Blumenschein

A founder of the Taos Art Colony in Taos, New Mexico, Ernest Blumenschein became one of the Southwest’s best-known painters of pueblo Indian genre. However, this period in his career for which he was most known came relatively late in his life as he had strong academic training in New York and Paris followed by a flourishing career as an illustrator in the East.

In New York, Blumenschein shared a studio with Phillips, and in 1898 with Blumenschein on assignment from McClure’s magazine to sketch the Southwest, he and Sharp traveled to Arizona and New Mexico. They inadvertently stopped in Taos when their wagon wheel broke because it was the nearest town. This adventure, which led to both of them ultimately settling there, was the beginning of the Taos Art Colony, a group composed of eastern artists who depicted the landscape and pueblo Indians.