Tradiciones / Artes 2025. 25th Anniversary Edition
‘¡Chicanao!
Caminos Distintos’ at MRM
Exhibit explores Chicano identity and art, past and present
Sun Brothers bring new light to Taos traditions Contemporary painters echo Taos Society of Artists in show
A generation transformed
How the GI Bill shaped modern art — and found a home in Taos
IN TAOS, ART IS NEVER STILL It moves with the seasons, with history and with the diverse communities who continue to shape it. From the moment Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips stumbled into the valley in 1898 with a broken wagon wheel, artists have come here in search of light, landscape and cultural depth. What they found — and what generations since have discovered — is a place where creativity thrives in many forms.
This year’s Tradiciones: Artes reflects that ongoing story. At the Millicent Rogers Museum, "¡Chicanao! Caminos Distintos" brings together more than 40 Chicana and Chicano artists who explore identity, heritage and resilience through painting, sculpture, photography and installation. Their work underscores how deeply intertwined art is with social movements, memory and cultural pride.
At the Harwood Museum of Art, curator MaLin Wilson-Powell’s "Pursuit of Happiness: American Artists, World War II and the GI Bill in Taos" reframes postwar art history, spotlighting how the GI Bill brought a generation of innovative artists — among them Eva Mirabal, Richard Diebenkorn and Janet Lippincott — into the orbit of Taos. Their legacy reminds us the valley has long been a nexus of global and local visions.
And at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, the Sun Brothers — three contemporary painters drawn to Taos from across the West — engage with the land and its people much as the Taos Society of Artists did a century ago. Their fresh perspectives remind us that Taos continues to inspire bold new voices.
Together, these stories affirm what Taoseños have always known: Art here is not only a tradition, but a living, evolving force.
Ellen Miller-Goins, magazine editor
A GENERATION transformed
How the GI Bill shaped modern art — and found a home in Taos
BY ELLEN MILLER-GOINS
When art historian and curator MaLin Wilson-Powell was preparing an exhibition at the University of New Mexico’s Jonson Gallery in 1989, she didn’t expect it to ignite a decades-long pursuit. But while curating “The Albuquerque ’50s,” WilsonPowell became captivated by a phenomenon that had yet to be explored in depth: the profound impact of the GI Bill on American artists after World War II.
“I thought, ‘The GI Bill was so important — I’ll go read about it,’” she said. “Well, there was nothing to read. No surveys, no books. So I just started collecting material, keeping files, trying to figure out who had been on the GI Bill. That was 1989. This exhibition — and the book — grew from that.”
The result is “Pursuit of Happiness: American Artists, World War II and the GI Bill in Taos, a landmark exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art opening Sept. 27, 2025, and running through March 31, 2026. The exhibit precedes the release of Wilson-Powell’s upcoming book, “The Pursuit of Happiness: American Artists, World War II, and the GI Bill,” slated for publication by the Museum of New Mexico Press.
A LEGACY OF ART, WAR — & OPPORTUNITY
The GI Bill — officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 — was a sweeping postwar initiative that transformed American society. It provided education, housing and business benefits to nearly 16 million returning veterans. Roughly half — over eight million — used it to pursue higher education, including in the arts.
“This was the first time Americans really saw each other,” Wilson-Powell said. “Only 24 percent had graduated high school before the war, and most had never traveled more than 200 miles from where they were born. Suddenly, they were all over the world — and then, with the GI Bill, all over the country. They came back and studied whatever they wanted. Instead of going home to pump gas, they became veterinarians, engineers, journalists — and artists.”
Unlike earlier government programs like the WPA, which assigned work projects, the GI Bill allowed veterans to choose their own educational paths. This autonomy helped foster an entire generation of experimental, international and highly mobile American artists.
TAOS as a NEXUS
While many historians have focused on New York’s rise as an art capital in the postwar years, “Pursuit of Happiness” shifts the lens westward. It centers on Taos as a vital — if under-recognized — hub in the modernist movement.
“Taos has always been a nexus,” Wilson-Powell explained. “Artists came to see Taos Pueblo, to study with Emil Bisttram, or to participate in schools like the Mandelman-Ribak Taos Valley Art School and the UNM Summer Field School of Art. And because of the GI Bill, many of them stayed — or came back.”
The exhibition features works by internationally renowned artists such as John Chamberlain and Ad Reinhardt, national renowned artists Lawrence Calcagno, Richard Diebenkorn and Oli Sihvonen, along with Eva Mirabal — all of whom either studied or spent significant time in Taos as part of their artistic development.
A standout among them is Mirabal, a Taos Pueblo artist and former Women’s Army Corps member who used her GI benefits to attend art school
after painting murals for the Army during the war. Her biting cartoon series “G.I. Gertie,” which lampooned military bureaucracy, is also featured.
Also highlighted is Janet Lippincott, a former Eisenhower aide and Bisttram student, who pushed regional art beyond romanticism into powerful abstraction, remaining under-recognized during her lifetime.
“These are not footnotes in art history,” Wilson-Powell said. “They are the story. The GI Bill created the first generation of American artists who were truly international — and many of them passed through Taos.”
MORE THAN A SHOW
This isn’t Wilson-Powell’s first collaboration with the Harwood Museum. In 2016, she curated the ambitious “Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company” exhibition there, transforming the entire museum with the assistance of then-development director Juniper Leherissey — now the Harwood’s executive director.
“She’s been behind me all the way,” Wilson-Powell said. “When I proposed that earlier show, the then-director
offered one small gallery. Juniper raised all the funds and made the whole thing happen. She’s also been instrumental in bringing this current project to life.”
As guest curator of “Pursuit of Happiness,” Wilson-Powell has drawn extensively from the Harwood’s permanent collection, regional lenders and national institutions. The exhibition is grouped by school affiliations — Bisttram’s atelier, the Taos Valley Art School, Black Mountain College and the California School of Fine Arts — highlighting the artistic cross-pollination that the GI Bill made possible. Supporting programming includes a curator’s talk on Sept. 27 and a gallery guide. The exhibition is sponsored in part by New Mexico Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and a constellation of private donors.
A BOOK LONG in
the
MAKING
Wilson-Powell submitted the manuscript for her book last year, but a publication date is still pending due to staffing turnover at the Museum of New Mexico Press. Still, she’s content to wait.
“I just want it done right,” she said.
The book profiles 30 artists and contextualizes their stories within the larger arc of postwar American art. It’s the first general survey on this topic, a gap Wilson-Powell has long sought to fill.
“This is history we’ve taken for granted,” she said. “We’ve all heard people say, ‘My dad went to college on the GI Bill and became a doctor.’ But what about the painters, the sculptors, the teachers?”
A CALL for the NEXT GENERATION
Though Wilson-Powell’s book casts a wide national net, she hopes others will pick up the torch to focus more locally.
“What I’d love,” she said, “is for someone to write a book just about GI Bill artists in New Mexico. That’s still waiting to be done.”
And as for her dream project?
“I always imagined this as a major traveling exhibition, organized by a national museum like the Whitney or the Hirshhorn. Something that would go coast to coast, then return home — so that other regional museums like the Harwood could present it with work from their own collections. What we’re doing now is a step in that direction.”
“PU RSUIT OF HAPPINESS: GI BILL IN TAOS”
Opens with an exhibit talk Saturday, Sept. 27 from 2:30–3:30 p.m. at the Harwood Museum of Art, 238 Ledoux St., Taos. Free with Harwood admission.
The exhibit runs Sept. 27, 2025, through May 31, 2026.
Featured artists include: Richard Diebenkorn, Eva Mirabal, Janet Lippincott, Oli Sihvonen, John Chamberlain, Beatrice Mandelman and others.
Through his work with the Lions Club of Taos, he has made a lasting difference for UNM-Taos Career Technical Education and Health Sciences students His efforts have raised more than $100,000 in scholarships, helping nursing, EMT, CNA, and CDL students pay for tuition, program and certificate fees, books, and living expenses
We are proud to recognize Bill for his quiet but powerful dedication, and we thank him for ensuring UNM-Taos students have the support they need to succeed
YOU BELONG HERE
Rooted in Creativity & Community
From murals to mobility solutions, Taos locals are turning creative ideas into real solutions with help from the LOR Foundation. So far, LOR has funded more than 425 community-led projects that reflect the priorities of Taoseños—in areas like education, housing, health, the environment, and beyond.
No formal proposals. No funding cycles. Just tailored support to bring local ideas to life. Have a project in mind? Let’s talk.
Exhibit explores Chicano identity and art, past and present
BY LYNNE ROBINSON
"VENTANA ROSA" BY TLACAELEL FUENTES
The cultural label of “Chicano” originated as a derogatory term for individuals of Mexican American heritage, but was reclaimed by members of the Pachuco movement in the 1940s, then adopted by members of Hispanic communities in their fight for civil rights.
The Chicano Movement was in actuality the largest and most widespread civil rights and empowerment movement by people of Mexican descent in the U.S. 1965 marked the beginning of the famous grape strike in California’s Central Valley (San Joaquin Valley) led by César Chávez, Reies Tijerina, Dolores Huerta and the farm workers themselves, to establish a union that would not only bring them wage increases, but a sense of dignity for their labor and for themselves.
The Chicano Movement, closely tied to and influenced by, the Black Panther Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement embracing Chicano identity and forging a worldview to combat systemic racism, encouraging community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Chicanos expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento.
The Chicano Movement called for the Chicano community to be able to control its own resources and determine its own future. It called for community control of its schools, economy, politics and culture.
The leaders of this movement understood that as part of its self-empowerment, it had to have a sense of its history — a history it had been denied in schools. The Chicano Movement instinctively recognized it had a history or counterhistory that it needed to uncover, which meant exploring Indigenous and mestizo past, including its roots in Mexican history, Mexico’s war with the U.S., the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and the history of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., along with the slavery that was a by-product of colonial conquest.
This eventually led the development of the field of Chicano history as part of the movement’s efforts to establish Chicano studies programs at universities and colleges.
Today, this term generally applies to individuals of Mexican American descent, however it is a term that has always encompassed nuances of meaning and that has remained unchanged.
This layered history — and the vibrant art it inspired — are the heart of “¡Chicanao! Caminos Distintos,” the latest exhibition at the Millicent Rogers Museum, on view through Nov. 2. The exhibit features more than 40 artists who explore Chicano art and identity through painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, installation and traditional crafts.
A Día de Los Muertos celebration and community ofrenda will close the show on Nov. 2 from noon to 5 p.m.
CONTINUED ON 8
ERIC ROMERO, CRUZ LOPEZ
"WHO WINS THIS GAME?" BY POLA LOPEZ
"LA SANTISIMA DE AMBER Y LAS ABEJAS" BY ANITA RODRIGUEZ, "LOWRIDER MUERTE BIKE" BY CRUZ LOPEZ, "WHO WINS THIS GAME?" BY POLA LOPEZ
All images courtesy of the Millicent Rogers Museum
CONTINUED FROM 7
MANY PATHS, ONE IDENTITY
“Caminos Distintos” refers to the many distinct paths Chicano artists in New Mexico have taken in expressing their Chicanismo. Early artists, now revered as Antepasados and Maestros, laid the groundwork for new generations. This exhibition honors those traditions while showcasing how today’s artists fuse cultural heritage with contemporary styles and issues.
Themes explored include cultural traditions, food and family, landscape, Día de Los Muertos, spiritual symbolism, and potent political statements — a hallmark of Chicano art then and now.
“The term Chicano has always encompassed nuance,” the museum’s curatorial statement notes. “We now pose the question: What has changed, and what has stayed the same?”
A FEW FEATURED ARTISTS
Among the featured artists is ANITA RODRIGUEZ, a celebrated painter and author from Taos whose work incorporates Dia de Los Muertos imagery and feminist Catholic symbolism. Her memoir, “Coyota in the Kitchen,” reflects the same cross-cultural richness seen in her visual art.
POLA LOPEZ, born and raised in Las Vegas, New Mexico, contributes paintings infused with Jicarilla Apache and European heritage, rich in spiritual and feminine symbolism.
PATRICIO TLACAELEL TRUJILLO Y FUENTES, known for intricate papel picado and cut paper work, draws from Indigenous, ancestral and contemporary sources. His pieces are featured in the Michael Gorman Gallery and will appear at Art Santa Fe this summer.
ALVIN GILL-TAPIA of Santa Fe contributes stylized depictions of adobe churches that blend Catholic iconography with modernist technique. His work evokes New Mexico’s architectural and spiritual heritage.
Other exhibiting artists include Marie Romero Cash, Luis Jimenez, Francisco LeFebre, Delilah Montoya, Eric Romero, Maye Torres and Tara Trudell, among many others. The artist list spans generations, mediums and regions, united by a shared cultural lineage and a commitment to storytelling through art.
A UNIFYING VOICE
The exhibit’s title, “¡Chicanao!,” combines Chicana and Chicano, symbolizing a unification of voices, past and present.
“Through this collection of work, we seek to honor the past, engage with the present, and envision the future through the eyes of Chicana and Chicano artists of New Mexico,” the museum writes. “All movements grow, evolve and change.”
The Millicent Rogers Museum is located at 1504 Millicent Rogers Road in El Prado. For more information, call 575-758-2462 or visit millicentrogers.org.
"RESISTE" BY DIEGO RIGALES
"RANCHOS" BY ALVIN GIL TAPIA
"MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH" BY MAYE TORRES
"CONTEMPLATING THE FUTURE" BY BRANDON MALDONADO
SunBrothers
BRING NEW LIGHT TO TAOS TRADITIONS
Contemporary
painters echo Taos Society of Artists in show
BY CINDY BROWN
For the three artists who call themselves the Sun Brothers, the beauty and culture of Taos spark a uniquely creative approach to Southwest contemporary art, giving the landscape and people of Taos new life and meaning.
In the tradition of the Taos Society of Artists 100 years ago, painters Glenn Dean, Josh Elliott and Logan Maxwell Hagege spent time traveling around Taos — to the Rio Grande, Taos Pueblo and other sites. Their work, featured in a show at the Lunder Research Center of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site through Nov. 15, reflects impressions of Taos that feel both familiar and astonishingly original.
When exhibited together, the work has a feeling of cohesiveness, although each of the painters has his own style. Dean evokes moods through his brush strokes, while Elliott captures the rolling contours of the landscape and the transparent light patterns of the Rio Grande in winter. Hagege brings a surprising clarity to his depictions of the people of Taos Pueblo and the land, capturing their intensity and essence.
With this show, the painters have become part of the 1,000year legacy of art in the Taos Valley.
When asked how the Sun Brothers show came to Taos, Davison Koenig, executive director and curator at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, said, “I’ve been friends with these painters since I entered this art world about 10 years ago. I would see them at big shows, at museum galas and at auctions — it is a small art world. It was clear that they were very talented. They all came to Taos at one point or another because Taos is a pilgrimage for all of these artists. If you are painting the American West, you are coming to Taos.”
Koenig saw an opportunity to invite the painters to engage more deeply with the community, and two years ago he invited them to create the show.
“If you are going to paint in Taos, you need to invest in Taos — invest in the story and invest in the people,” Koenig explained. “That’s what the Taos Society of Artists did; that’s what made them unique. By the 1920s, most of them were living full time in Taos and were embedded in the community. You need to be committed, and you need to get Taos to paint Taos.”
Koenig often traveled with each of the artists as they sought out scenes to paint.
“When I traveled around with them looking at landscapes, it was fun for me because I’m exploring, and I get to see my world through their eyes,” he said. “The other part that is fascinating is the relationship between the models and the artists. You see exactly what happened 100 years ago. You see this dialogue happen between the model and the artist that neither of them fully controls; it becomes something special. When the magic happens, it is palpable to the model and the artist. The model has to project something real or it doesn’t work — and of course, the people of the Pueblo can’t do anything but be authentic.”
The reciprocal relationship between model and painter ensures that the work doesn’t feel exploitative or extractive. The artists made a contribution to the Taos Pueblo Art Education Fund to help sponsor field trips and purchase supplies for Taos Pueblo Day School, and gave a percentage of the sale proceeds from the opening-night auction to the Couse-Sharp Site.
One of the paintings that sold as part of the auction was a painting of Taos Pueblo by Elliott titled Intersections, which depicts the San Geronimo Cemetery against the village and snow-covered Taos Mountain.
“This is the Pueblo from a completely new perspective,” Koe nig said. “It has a fresh and invigorating composition with all of its elements — including the walking rain and the shadows. It is one of the most exciting paintings I’ve seen in years.”
Making positive change, together!
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At Nusenda, we are more than just a bank, we are a credit union dedicated to improving our members’ financial well-being and the places we serve. The social and economic health of our community drives us, as does supporting innovations that promise to build a brighter future for generations to come.
We’d like to thank our partners for the shared commitment to making our communities better places to live and work. Together, we can do great things!
JOSH ELLIOTT, “INTERSECTIONS,” 2025, OIL ON CANVAS, 30 X 30 IN.
@NusendaCU
In the TRADITION of the TAOS SOCIETY of ARTISTS
The Taos Society of Artists had a goal to create a uniquely American art, according to Koenig — one based on the multicultural story of Taos.
The Sun Brothers continue that tradition, bringing a renewed appreciation for the beauty of the landscape and the deeply rooted Taos Pueblo culture through their paintings of its people — works that are both deeply personal and universally resonant, evoking emotions like pride and dignity.
“I really hope that Taoseños come and see the show,” Koenig said. “I now completely view Taos Valley differently because I see it through the eyes of the artists of 100 years ago, but I also see it through the eyes of contemporary Taos artists. Look at how they treat the clouds, landscape and culture that are very unique to Taos. When someone really captures that, you see it through their eyes. All of this at Taos Pueblo is alive and well.”
LUNDER RESEARCH CENTER at the COUSE-SHARP HISTORIC SITE
The Lunder Research Center is part of the CouseSharp Historic Site on Kit Carson Road. The 2-acre site includes the perfectly preserved home and studio of E.I. Couse and both Taos studios of Joseph H. Sharp. Both helped found the Taos Society of Artists in 1915. The historic site can be toured by appointment.
The Lunder Research Center was completed in 2021 and is the renovation of the former Mission Gallery. It is the repository for the documents, artifacts and art of the 12 members of the TSA, early Taos artists and contemporary artists drawing from the story of Taos. It includes correspondence, photographic prints and negatives, sketchbooks, and original works of art, alongside an extensive library with scholarly papers related to the artists and Native American art and ethnography.
The show is on view at the Dean Porter Gallery at the research center until Nov. 15 at 138 Kit Carson Road. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m., except holidays.
For more information, visit couse-sharp.org and sunbrotherstaos.com.
FROM LEFT, JOSH ELLIOTT, LOGAN MAXWELL HAGEGE AND GLENN DEAN ON THE ROOF OF E. I. COUSE’S HOME AT COUSE-SHARP
HISTORIC SITE IN TAOS./ COURTESY PHOTO
GLENN DEAN, “PUEBLO
The art of living in balance with our surroundings for more than 1,000 years.
In December of 1970, former President Nixon and congress authorized the return of Blue Lake and 48,000 acres of sacred land to Taos Pueblo. The decades long effort of Taos Pueblo representatives helped restore pueblo lands and the continuation of millenniums-old traditions.
Perhaps equally as important, it set a precedent for self-determination for Native Americans.
