The Accidental Artist of Taos: Bert Phillips’ Wild West Adventure

Picture this: It’s 1898, and a young artist named Bert Phillips is trotting through New Mexico on horseback, probably questioning his life choices. He’s just left behind the comfort of New York’s art scene for… well, dust and cacti. But what started as a simple camping trip with his buddy Ernest Blumenschein would turn into one of the most fortuitous wagon wheel breakdowns in art history.

See, their wagon broke down near Taos (spoiler alert: best accident ever), and while waiting for repairs, Phillips fell head over heels – not off his horse, but in love with the place. He took one look at the dramatic landscapes, rich Native American culture, and that famous New Mexico light, and decided right then and there: “Yep, this is home now.”

Phillips wasn’t your typical East Coast artist transplant. Before becoming a painter, he’d tried his hand at being a cowboy in Texas. Imagine a beret-wearing, paintbrush-wielding cowpoke, and you’ve got Bert Phillips in a nutshell. This unique background actually served him well – he could wrangle both horses and oil paints with equal skill.

As one of the founding members of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915, Phillips brought something special to the table. While others might have seen the Southwest through a tourist’s eyes, he saw it through the lens of someone who’d actually lived the frontier life. His paintings captured not just the look of the West, but its soul – even if that soul occasionally included a cow giving him the side-eye while he tried to sketch.

His specialty became depicting Native American life and the New Mexican landscape, but with a twist. Unlike some of his contemporaries who painted romanticized versions of the West, Phillips insisted on authenticity. He spent countless hours with the Taos Pueblo people, learning their customs and traditions. Though one has to wonder how many times he had to explain why the strange man with the easel kept showing up at their doorstep.

Phillips’ legacy lives on in Taos, where he spent the rest of his life after that fateful broken wagon wheel. He opened the first commercial art gallery in Taos (though “commercial” might be a generous term for what was essentially a converted adobe house with paintings hung wherever they’d fit), paving the way for the art colony Taos would become.

The next time you’re in Taos, tip your hat to Bert Phillips – the cowboy artist who proved that sometimes the best career moves happen by accident. Just maybe don’t try breaking your own wagon wheel to find inspiration. The local mechanics probably wouldn’t appreciate it.