New Beginnings: An American Story of Romantics and Modernists in the West

Just as the artist communities of Taos and Santa Fe influenced incoming hopefuls seeking the light and culture of the Southwest, so too did New Beginnings create new relationships, allowing Tia to further our mission and share our collection with as diverse an audience as possible through a broader network of museums. While we had the pleasure of working with over half of the venues before, several were new institutions that have become valued collaborators.

When we began planning this exhibition in late 2016, we thought it might comprise about 50 works. However, that number quickly doubled as we acquired new artwork by artists whose stories complimented the narrative we wanted to share. Aside from the notable artists of the Santa Fe Art Colony and the Taos Society of Artists, we highlighted creators who mingled with these established groups and also found beauty in the Southwest.

New Beginnings offers an original perspective and dimension to the history of the Taos and Santa Fe art colonies and their enduring legacy by introducing unknown or little-known artists to the conversation, including the many talented women who were active in New Mexico during the early to mid-1900s. The show furthermore would not have come to life without the thoroughly researched essay by MaLin Wilson-Powell, which sought to highlight this group of marginalized and lesser-known works among the whole.

The inaugural opening in 2018 took place at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, marking Tia’s second collaboration with the museum, following a loan to their comprehensive Taos Society of Artists exhibit in 2017. Chief Curator Tricia Loscher, Ph.D.; Richard Lampert; and a major museum patron shared our vision for the show. We worked together to decide the layout of the show, paint colors for the walls, and the first version of the 250 page exhibition catalogue.

The second venue, The Booth Western Art Museum, which is located in Cartersville, GA, is one of the first museums Tia Collection worked with, beginning in 2010. Executive Director Seth Hopkins was eager to show this exhibition in the broader context of the museum’s presentation of Western art. Hopkins’ collaborative network includes his guest curator role at other museums, including the recently opened exhibition The New West: The Rise of Contemporary Indigenous and Western Art at Steamboat Art Museum in Colorado, which includes 18 works on loan from Tia and is currently view through mid-April of this year.

Yellowstone Art Museum (YAM) in Montana was the show’s third location, taking place from March through June of 2021, and marking our second time working with them. Previously, YAM hosted Modernist Intersections: The Tia Collection which had started at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 2016. Like the early Montana Modernists that are regularly exhibited by YAM, the artists of New Beginnings also pushed boundaries, adopted new ways of seeing and thinking, and embraced originality. These core components were important concepts that YAM wanted to share with their patrons.

The next stop was The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City from September 2021 to January 2022. Although Tia had previously loaned works to The Philbrook and Gilcrease Museums in Oklahoma, this was our first time working with The Cowboy Hall. We knew we were in excellent hands with Michael Grauer, McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture & Curator of Cowboy Collections & Western Art, who had previously been at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum for over 30 years, and brought his dedication and scholarship to add extensive programming and lectures to their presentation of the exhibition.

It was especially exciting for the fifth installation of the show to take place at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico. This venue allowed the artwork to come full circle back to the community where many of the artists lived and/or visited. Lucy Harwood established the Harwood Foundation (predecessor to the Museum) with the Taos Society of Artists members after her husband’s death in 1923, and it has showcased local artists since that time. New Beginnings was once again given context in a building dating to 1861 that was a central fixture within the Taos community from the time the Harwoods moved there in 1916, one year after the founding of the Taos Society of Artists.