When Europe Met the Southwest: The Complicated Legacy of the Taos Society of Artists

In 1915, six artists with European training and East Coast sensibilities founded the Taos Society of Artists. What followed was either a revolutionary artistic movement or a masterclass in cultural appropriation – depending on who’s telling the story.

The European Gaze Meets Pueblo Life

Picture this: artists trained in Munich and Paris suddenly discovering that everything they learned about light and color needed a serious update. The intense New Mexico sun didn’t play by European rules, and the landscape refused to fit into classical compositions. Yet instead of retreating to their comfortable East Coast studios, these artists stayed, captivated by what they saw as an “untouched” world.

The irony? This “untouched” world had been creating art for centuries.

The Allure of the “Exotic”

For these European-trained artists, Taos was the antidote to industrialization. While cities back East choked on factory smoke, Taos Pueblo represented their idealized vision of a simpler, more “authentic” life. The artists found themselves painting what they saw as a vanishing way of life – though the Pueblo people might have pointed out they weren’t planning on vanishing anywhere.

The artists’ fascination with Pueblo culture produced stunning artwork, but it also reflected a romanticized, outsider’s view that often missed the deeper cultural significance of what they were painting. They saw ceremony and tradition through a lens of exoticism rather than living culture.

The Overlooked Artists

While the Taos Society gained national recognition, local Native American and Hispanic artists continued their own artistic traditions with considerably less fanfare. The very scenes that Society artists painted as “exotic” were daily life for local artists, who approached the same subjects from an insider’s perspective.

Pueblo artists had been creating pottery, textiles, and ceremonial art for generations. Hispanic santeros had developed their own distinctive artistic tradition. Yet these artists often found themselves relegated to the category of “craftspeople” while the Society members were hailed as fine artists.

The Complex Legacy

The Taos Society of Artists’ legacy is complicated. They undeniably put Taos on the international art map and created stunning works that captured a particular moment in time. Their paintings also preserved visual records of early 20th century Pueblo life – albeit through an outsider’s lens.

However, their success also exemplified cultural power dynamics of the era. The Society’s overwhelming success meant that for decades, the “authentic” view of Taos was defined by outsiders rather than community members. It would take generations before local Native American and Hispanic artists received similar recognition in the fine art world.

Contemporary Perspective

Today, we can appreciate the technical brilliance and historical significance of the Taos Society’s work while acknowledging its cultural complexities. Their paintings reveal as much about early 20th century Anglo-American attitudes toward the Southwest as they do about Taos itself.

The story of the Taos Society of Artists reminds us that art, even at its most beautiful, exists within larger social and cultural contexts. It raises questions that remain relevant today about who gets to tell a community’s stories and whose art gets celebrated.

Modern Taos continues to grapple with these questions, as contemporary Native American and Hispanic artists reclaim their narrative, proving that the artistic spirit of Taos belongs not to any one group, but to all who call this remarkable place home.