Both artists and collectors will learn much by reading this book, for it proves that it is more than technical skill and artistic sensibility that contribute to an artist's financial and critical success.
Those who have instinctively turned to Europe and the Eastern American Artists when wanting to view fine works of art will be enlightened and surprised to learn that some of the finest works of art in this century have been produced not in Europe, but in the USA and in the Southwest in particular.
This is a beautiful and informative book for anyone interested in art, whether they be collectors or art historians or simply those who like to view magnificent works.
Taos Artists and Their Patrons examines age-old dilemmas facing artists in the early years of the Taos art colony: how to make art and still manage to pay the bills, and how to attract emotional support that often made the difference between success and failure; and discusses how patrons in many guises,from corporate and governmental programs, to wealthy collectors and loyal family members, offered innovative solutions to these predicaments.
In addition to art colony founders and the academically- trained artists who joined them, the book includes later arrivals, such as modernists Andrew Dasburg, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Dorothy Brett, who followed Mabel Dodge Luhan to Taos. This is an essential reference work for scholars and collectors of New Mexico art.