Homage to Berninghaus
Six-artist show
Oscar E. Berninghaus (1874-1952) first visited Taos, New Mexico, in 1899, traveling by train as a commercial artist for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. He often sat in a chair secured to the top of the baggage car to get a better view. During a visit to Taos he met Bert Geer Phillips (18681956) who became his friend. He returned to Taos in the summers to paint the Pueblo people and the environs, eventually settling there in 1925. In 1915, he and Phillips were among the founding members of the Taos Society of Artists.
Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is presenting Homage to Oscar E. Berninghaus, March 27 through April 18.
Blue Rain artists have been invited to “select an original composition painted by Oscar E. Berninghaus during his career, and pay tribute to the masterwork through their own adaptation and reinterpretation of the original composition. Each of the artists participating in this exclusive tribute exhibition brings a fresh and unique perspective to the paintings
that so fondly and objectively portrayed the Taos country, the Pueblo peoples and villages of the region.”
Among the artists are Billy Schenck, Brad Overton, Matthew Sievers, Erin Currier, Deladier Almeida and Roseta Santiago.
Almeida was inspired by Berninghaus’s painting Peace and Plenty, in which an elder and a young woman admire the fruits of the harvest. He brings them into the 21st century and has them enraptured by their smartphone and laptop.
Roseta Santiago comments, “When I moved to Santa Fe in 2000 to discover the Southwest and make a career of oil painting I had no idea I was following in the footsteps of many painters including the Taos Society of Artists. The magic of landing in a place of living history was inspiring, the people beautiful and the light amazing and clear. For this show I selected a painting titled Ricardo and His Horses because the theme and place were so familiar to me. I decided to place a living Taos resident, Deryle James Lujan and his new horse April in the painting to show there is no difference in the way the Taos Pueblo residents lived in the time of Berninghaus and Deryle ,and his family living today in the foothills of Taos Mountain.”