Matthews Gallery – The Modernist Impulse
Santa Fe, NM | August 5, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Matthews Gallery
669 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
www.thematthewsgallery.com
jordan@thematthewsgallery.com
505.992.2882
THE MODERNIST IMPULSE
New Mexico’s 20th Century Avant-Garde
September 1 – October 31, 2015
Opening reception: Friday, September 4, 5-7 pm
MATTHEWS GALLERY TELLS MODERNIST HISTORY
THROUGH EVER-EVOLVING EXHIBITION
Santa Fe, NM — “Wonderful place. You must come. Am sending ticket. Bring me a cook.” Mabel Dodge Lujan’s telegram to artist Andrew Dasburg is a seminal moment in New Mexico art history. Lujan, a prominent arts champion from New York, had fallen in love with the Taos art colony and was determined to summon artists there from the East. The efforts of Lujan and her counterparts in Santa Fe and Albuquerque sparked a great influx of modernist artists to the region, eclipsing the traditional styles that had reigned there in the late 19th century. Matthews Gallery’s exhibition THE MODERNIST IMPULSE: New Mexico’s 20th Century Avant-Garde, will tell stories of revolutionary artists throughout the previous century in a special rolling exhibition from September through October, 2015.
“We’re working in concert with Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s ‘Fall of Modernism’ event series to trace the grand arc of New Mexico’s modernist history,” says gallery owner Lawrence Matthews. “Starting with Lujan’s circle, which arrived in the 1920s, and moving forward through the decades, we’ll examine the strong impulse of modernist artists to settle in New Mexico and revolutionize the art colonies out here.”
Over the course of the two-month show, Matthews Gallery’s walls will shift through time. Early Taos modernists will give way for the Taos Moderns movement, Santa Fe artist and art teacher Alfred Morang will pass the baton to students such as Janet Lippincott and William Vincent, and rays of influence from the revolutionary Transcendental Painting Group will stretch far beyond its short existence. Contemporary artist Eli Levin, who came to New Mexico in the 1960’s and knew many notable modernists, will round out the group.
