Showcasing featured and upcoming exhibitions and events at the Harwood Museum of Art.
In 1916, Burt and Lucy Harwood moved from France to Taos, New Mexico, where they bought property on Ledoux Street. In 1923, after her husband’s death, Lucy Harwood formed the Harwood Foundation. Among the incorporators were Taos Society of Artists members Bert Geer Phillips and Victor Higgins. The foundation’s goals were “to establish and maintain, in said town of Taos, New Mexico, a public library, a museum, and other educational agencies.” The following year it held its first art exhibition. In 1935 the foundation was given to the University of New Mexico. The original adobe buildings have expanded into a state-of-the-art museum complex that continues to expand its vision “as a cultural center that presents the art of our region while also serving as an important educational asset to northern New Mexico.”
Featured Exhibition
The summer exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art opened July 11 and continues through spring 2021. It is the first juried exhibition of local art since 2003. Contemporary Art / Taos 2020 “takes the temperature on Taos’ current creativity,” according to the museum. More than 300 artists submitted work and 24 were selected for the exhibition. The museum’s executive director, Juniper Manley, notes that their summer exhibitions “demonstrate that the Taos Art Colony is still alive and well; a place as strong as ever for creatives to make artwork.” She also notes that many of the artists whose work could not be included in the exhibition will be shown in collaborations with local galleries.
Among the artists included in Contemporary Art / Taos 2020 is the renowned haute couture designer Patricia Michaels whose family is from Taos Pueblo. Her fashion piece, Reflexion of My Journeys, was inspired by the 50th anniversary of the return of the Pueblo’s sacred Blue Lake in 1970. Rights to the land had been taken by the federal government in 1906.
The breadth of artistic expression by artists in the Taos region is also demonstrated by the spectacular larger-than-life Braiding Reconciliation by Lynnette Haozous who is Chiricahua Apache (of the San Carlos Apache Tribe), Navajo and Taos Pueblo. The installation piece is composed of yucca rope, natural fiber rope, wood, acrylic, wool, rockets and corn husks.
The Harwood’s other continuing exhibition is Las Santeras: Images of Faith and Folklore, an important exhibition of female santos carvers.