Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, (1874-1960)

Fishing Eagle's Nest Lake 12 x 16in framed 17 x 21in

Fishing Eagle's Nest Lake
signed and inscribed 'To Hugh Cuthbert from E.L. Blumenschein, Taos, N.M.' (lower left)
oil on canvasboard
12 x 16in
framed 17 x 21in

Provenance
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Taos Society of Artists founder Ernest Blumenschein first visited the Taos area in 1898 with his friend and fellow artist and adventurer Bert Geer Phillips. Immediately inspired by the sage-brush scented air, the vast sky with dramatic and changing clouds, the dramatic and vast landscape vistas and the local Taos peoples, Blumenschein spent three months there before returning to New York to continue a career as an illustrator. Although family and work obligations in the subsequent years kept Blumenschein in New York while Phillips stayed in Taos, where he established himself as a full-time artist, Blumenschein always had Taos in front of mind. Blumenschein was finally able to work out a compromise, beginning in 1910 and continuing for eight years: he would rent a studio and paint in Taos during the summer while spending the other nine months in New York, where he continued to work as an illustrator and teach at the Art Students League. In 1919, he and his wife Mary Blumenschein, also a painter and illustrator, finally established permanent residency in Taos where they were active participants in developing the artistic community there.

Blumenschein was fascinated by and found endless inspiration in the local cultures and traditions of both the Native peoples and the Mexican Americans living in the area, as well as the area's surrounding high desert and mountain landscape. Eagle Nest Lake was a subject the artist explored in oil multiple times, including Fishing Eagle's Nest Lake. Blumenschein wrote of another painting of the lake, "This lovely lake, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, is in a valley surrounded by mountains. I have painted it at least five times in different moods." 1

In the present work, two men, one who may be Hugh Cuthbert based on the painting's inscription, stand with their backs to the viewer focusing on the lake's blue and green surface as they angle for fish, while three seated men in wide brimmed hats sit along the shore to their right. The figures and the lake's surface are painted in quick, deft strokes of paint showing the artist's skill as a draftsman and his strong sense of anatomy and gesture. In the layered composition, the high elevation lake is backed by glacial foothills dotted with pine trees looking in the direction of Wheeler Peak. The higher peaks are not visible, but more distant mountains are suggested by the white and blue outlining of paint along the ridge of the hills. Blumenschein was passionate and competitive both in his recreational activities, including tennis and bridge, and in his painting. In Fishing Eagle's Nest Lake he presents men engaging in a popular pastime amidst a landscape of typical Northern New Mexican forms and colors.

1 As quoted in R. Finnie, Blumenschein: A Self-Portrait with Notes on Four Paintings in the Paul Grafe Collection, San Francisco, California, 1946, p. 11.