American Artists in the Southwest. Works from the Melanson Holt Collection

By Claire Fenton

The Mennello Museum of American Art presents “American Artists in the Southwest,” a show that explores the first generation of Anglo artists settling in an already established Southwest, the Post World War I influx of a second-generation of artists, writers, and thinkers from the coasts to the Southwest during the Depression-era, through World War II, and America’s evolution into Modernism. The show has been curated by Katherine Page.

Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (American, 1874 - 1952), Talpa Church, 1927. Monotype. Collection of the Mennello Museum of American Art, Gift of Robert Melanson in memory of Frank Holt, Founding Director.

Early 20^thcentury themes of landscape and culture of the Southwest are explored by the artists presented. They reveal transcendent desert light, remote lands, and an extraordinary way of life. Featured in the exhibit are artists with ties to the New Mexican art colonies in Taos and Santa Fe including E. Martin Hennings, Kenneth Adams, Gustave Baumann, O.E. Berninghaus, and William Shuster, as well as Gene Kloss, Harrison Begay, Pop Chalee, Dole Reed, and Rockwell Kent, among others.

The works on view are gifts from The Melanson Holt Collection. It was created between 2017-2019, in honor of Frank Holt, Mennello Museum of American Art Founding Director.

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Pop Chalee (aka, Merina Lujan; American, 1908 - 1993), Untitled (Blue Horse), n.d. Silkscreen of gouache on paper. Collection of the Mennello Museum of American Art, Gift of Robert Melanson in memory of Frank Holt, Founding Director.

“It has been most rewarding working with Robert Melanson for several years learning about his collection and graciously accepting so many wonderful gifts of art for the museum’s permanent collection,” shared Mennello Museum Executive Director Shannon Fitzgerald. “I am grateful for Robert’s generosity that led to this important exhibition that also speaks to the importance of our museum expansion enabling the best facilities for the stewardship of our collection and further cultivation of gifts.”

“American Artists in the Southwest”spans a significant period of artistic production and change in the United States through different media. It also explores Modern American artists’ stylistic and theoretical developments from the 1890s - 2000s with strong examples of work created between the world wars.

Gene Kloss (American, 1903 - 1996), Adobe House and Taos Mountains, n.d. Etching; edition: 20/25. Collection of the Mennello Museum of American Art, Gift of Robert Melanson in memory of Frank Holt, Founding Director.

The overarching cultural context of ”American Artists in the Southwest” lies in the broadening art world of the early 20^thcentury in the United States. Marking the dawn of Modernism in the U.S., the Armory exhibition of 1913 introduced several European impressionists, cubists, fauvists, and avant-garde artists that would long influence Modern Art-making in the United States. These influences shook up the American art world from its insistence on pure realism as dictated through academic training toward more theoretical ideas of expression, abstraction, social realism, industry, and regionalism. At the turn of the last century, American artists from the East Coast art worlds in New York and Pennsylvania were also drawn by an adventurous Southwest journey. They were first brought to the area as professional illustrators hired to document the stunning vistas for marketing the tourism of new railroad systems and the continental westward expansion of a burgeoning United States. The artists were quickly enraptured in revealing to their audiences back home the awe-inspiring desert colors and extraordinary ways of life of those connected to this uniquely-American landscape. The show is on view through April 11, 2021.

The Mennello Museum of American Art is located at 900 E. Princeton Street. Orlando, FL, 32803. www.mennellomuseum.org.