Thursday, January 27, 2011

Carlos Hall (1928-1997)



"Navajo Scarecrow" 20 x 30, Oil on Canvas
"Waiting for the Drummers" 30 x 40, Oil on Canvas

CARLOS HALL
New Mexico 1928-1997

Carlos Halls name is associated with bold, vigorous color reflective of the people and landscapes of New Mexico. Of his exuberance with color, one of his peers said that “Carlos could find color under a stone.”

Anyone familiar with Halls artwork knows that his pieces are linked to his strong New Mexico heritage. He was raised in the eastern New Mexico border town of Clovis by his great aunt, Nelle, and great uncle, Charles Scheurich. Through this uncle, Hall is descended from both Charles Bent, the first Civil Governor of the New Mexico territory, and to Kit Carson. In fact, Carson died in the arms of Scheurichs father, and Hall possesses the last correspondence of Carson. Halls great grandfather was a cowboy during the great cattle drives of the 1870s. From his great aunt and uncle, whose family home was in Taos, Hall learned the language, chants and dances of the Taos Pueblo Indians.

Beginning at a young age, Hall associated with the painters known as The Taos Founders, and inspired by their work, began taking painting lessons from age nine. However in his early adult life, he took a turn away from his artistic interests. He graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute and finished college at Eastern New Mexico University. Then he served as an army officer, worked for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, operated a hotel in Mazatlan, Mexico, and co-owned an art gallery in Santa Fe.

In 1965, he determined to work full time as an artist, and he and his wife, Sandy, moved to the Taos area where they lived in an adobe home on a mesa overlooking Taos Pueblo owned land. For many years, he has been regarded as a professional artist, and his work is so generally popular that not only is he widely collected, but his poster designs were the program covers for the Scottsdale Jazz Festival in 1992 and recently for the Taos telephone directory.

Hall is particularly fascinated by the blanketed Taos Pueblo Indians. According to a Southwest Art magazine feature article, December 1986: “The folds of their blankets became a magnet that attracted Hall to the patterns that he found repeated in the mountains surrounding the valley. It would become a motif that would continue in his art, even to the present day.” These motifs of dazzling color and design appear in his landscapes of the nearby Rio Grande Valley and those of places further away in western New Mexico and Arizona.

Courtesy of Taos Gallery Scottsdale

Sunday, January 16, 2011

"Aunt Mary" by Rory Wagner, 1991, Acrylic on Canvas, 64 x 58, $ 50.000.


From the Collection of RC Gorman ( 1931-2005). Rory Wagner was commissioned to do this work of RC Gormans favorite aunt, “Aunt Mary”