Harwood Museum of Art Centennial - Exhibition Gallery Guide

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Reflecting On Our Legacy. Envisioning The Future.

June 3, 2023 – January 28, 2024

Gallery Guide

1 Harwood Museum Centennial

The Centennial Exhibition is a survey of the museum through time, the history of the town to which it is so central, and the role that art from Taos and its surroundings played in the larger artistic movements of the last century.

2 Land History

The land history of the Harwood extends from the Taos Pueblo, to Spanish occupation and the Don Fernando de Taos land grant, to U.S. Army Captain Smith H. Simpson, to Burt and Lucy Harwood. Mapping this history is an acknowledgement of the Indigenous people who have been living and working on Taos lands from time immemorial.

3 Burt & Lucy Harwood

Elihu Burritt “Burt” Harwood and Elizabeth Lucy Case were wealthy Midwesterners who met and married in 1896 with a mutual appreciation for the arts. They spent twenty years in Paris, France, before moving to Taos in 1916 and developing their home into an art gallery, artists’ quarters, and community library.

4 Harwood Foundation

Lucy Harwood incorporated the Harwood Foundation in 1923, which she and Burt had developed into an art salon, studio, and lodging house. When the property was gifted to the University of New Mexico in 1936, the deed of conveyance specified that the property be utilized as “an educational, cultural, and art center in connection with the University.”

5 The Building Through Time

The Harwood building has undergone continual repairs and upgrades to better suit the needs of the community, the changing functions of the museum, and the long-term care of its collection. This exhibition section highlights key architectural eras of the Harwood including the original property of Smith H. Simpson, the renovations made by Burt and Lucy Harwood, and the expansion completed by the University of New Mexico and John Gaw Meem.

6 First Library

The Harwood served as Taos’s only public library for over sixty years, initially as a lending library on Lucy Harwood’s front porch, and later as a gathering place for artists and residents. This gallery is a recreation of the library.

7 Art Gallery

The first art exhibition featuring Taos artists was held at the Harwood in 1924, which included wellknown and amateur artists, and drew in locals and travelers alike. To honor the first exhibition with an archived artist list that took place in 1926, this gallery highlights works by those artists.

8 Taos County Project

The Taos County Project was an experimental project in cooperative county planning headquartered at the Harwood Foundation from 1940–1943, with the purpose of addressing community concerns across the region. To encourage handicraft trainings among youth, locals were hired by the Harwood Foundation for construction projects, landscaping assistance, and the creation of a furniture and drapery set. On view are restored furniture and tinwork pieces that were created for this original Harwood suite.

9 Bookmobile

The first bookmobile in Taos County arrived through the Taos County Project. Operating out of the Harwood Foundation, the bookmobile—a red bus equipped with bookshelves, books in Spanish and English, and a portable movie projector—was beloved by the community, with entire villages gathering around the bus for its variety of literature and film.

0 Painting en Plein Air

The Summer Field School of Art (Field School) was a University of New Mexico program that took place at the Harwood Museum of Art beginning in 1929 and continuing until 1956. For much of the Field School’s history, students were housed at the Harwood in the Alcalde Building, which also served as class headquarters. The list of artists and influential people that led, taught at, or attended the Field School is a testament to the magic that unfurled in these summer semesters.

 David Witt & Robert M. “Bob” Ellis

The Harwood Foundation hired its first official curator, David Witt, in 1979. Witt initiated the first cataloguing system for the permanent collection, began the archives, maintained professional and safe storage for the collection, and created a curatorial focus that would shape the Harwood as an art museum.

Robert M. “Bob” Ellis served as a leader for the Harwood from 1987 until 2001, transforming the regional art gallery space into a world-class museum. Ellis dramatically expanded the galleries, exhibited prominent artists from the Los Angeles to Taos movement, and spearheaded construction of the Agnes Martin Gallery.

 Art Legends of the Harwood

The Harwood has an illustrious history with artists who have been critical to the institution for one hundred years. Artists served on the Harwood Museum of Art Board of Directors and its many committees; lodged onsite in the Harwood apartments; studied and taught through the UNM Summer Field School of Art; and exhibited throughout the museum’s history. This gallery features masterpieces by Georgia O’Keeffe, Elaine de Kooning, Margaret Bourke-White, and many other art legends of the Harwood.

Call to Artists

The Harwood put out a Call to Artists to commission an original artwork for the Centennial Exhibition with the theme, “Envisioning the Future.” Lynnette Haozous (Taos Pueblo/Chiricahua Apache/Navajo) was the recipient of the commission for her original proposal, “Seeds of the Future,” now installed and on view.

 The Theater

In 1938, architect John Gaw Meem completed a building expansion that included a communal theater room on the second story. For over seventy years, this theater hosted hundreds of locally created dramas and plays; even when the stage was removed in 1996, performances remained in the open gallery space.

Tastemaker of Taos

Mabel Dodge Luhan was a prominent figure in New York City and Europe before arriving in Taos in 1917, where she continued to be known for entertaining and inspiring artists, writers, and thinkers. In the forty-five years that Luhan was affiliated with the Harwood, she gifted the institution paintings, devotional artworks, Persian and Indian miniatures, and hundreds of books—a selection of which is on view in this gallery.

 Permanent Collection

The Harwood’s art collection of six thousand five hundred permanent objects includes one of the most significant holdings of Spanish colonial and contemporary devotional art; work by the Taos Society of Artists; Works Progress Administration furniture and tinwork; and post-World War II art from the Taos Modernists movement. This gallery will highlight a selection of the most significant gifts and long-term loans of our collection:

• June 3: Gus Foster Collection

• September 15: Mandelman-Ribak Collection

• December 1: Taos Municipal Schools

Historic Collection

 Open Wall

In honor of the Harwood’s grassroots foundation where any Taos artist could pay a $5.00 membership fee to exhibit their works jury-free, local artists are invited to hang their work at our rotating pop-up community art exhibition. A one-day installed, selfcurated exhibition will open to the community every three months with music and refreshments.

Open Wall: June 1 | August 3 | November 2

Stewardship for the Future

A special subset of archives owned by the Taos Pueblo and related to the Pueblo’s historic commitment to regain its sacred Blue Lake are presently housed at the Harwood. The Harwood is humbled to protect these priceless archives while the Pueblo establishes its own museum facility.

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Image credits, top to bottom: Larry Bell, Cube 41 , 2006, blue and green clear-coated glass on plexiglass stand, glass cube: 20 × 20 × 20 in. Gift of the Artist, Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico. © Larry Bell.; Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, Ourselves and Taos Neighbors , c. 1940, oil on canvas, 41 x 50 in (104.1 x 127 cm). Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas. Partial Bequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965 and Partial Gift of Nelda C. Stark, 1973. 31.30.12.A.; Harwood historic exterior , n.d., photographic print. Harwood Museum of Art Archives.

F I RST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR

1 Harwood Museum Centennial

2 Land History

3 Burt & Lucy Harwood

4 Harwood Foundation

5 The Building Through Time

6 First Library

7 Art Gallery

8 Taos County Project

9 Bookmobile

0 Painting en Plein Air

 David Witt & Robert M. “Bob” Ellis

 Art Legends of the Harwood

 Call to Artists

 The Theater

 Tastemaker of Taos

 Permanent Collection

 Open Wall

 Stewardship for the Future

Harwood Centennial is made possible by the generous support of Henry Luce Foundation, Joyce and Sherman Scott, 203 Fine Art, Arroyo Seco Live, Inc., The University of New Mexico Office of Academic Affairs, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Traci Chavez-McAdams and Scott McAdams, Casa Benavides, Clean Taos, Harwood Museum Alliance, Inc., JLH Media, Invisible City Designs, and Randall Lumber & Hardware. Additional funding is provided through the Betty Thom Foster Special Exhibitions Endowment and the Beatrice Mandelman and Louis Ribak Legacy Endowment of the Harwood Museum of Art.

AGNES MARTIN GALLERY ADMISSIONS & MUSEUM SHOP KEN PRICE DEATH SHRINE I
ARTHUR BELL AUDITORIUM
MUSEUM ENTRANCE
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