The term Old Masters traditionally refers to the great European painters who worked before the modern era, artists who achieved complete mastery of their craft and whose work became the foundation on which later generations built. At Windsor Betts, we use the term in a different but equally meaningful context, applying it to the artists who played a defining role in shaping the art of the American Southwest during the twentieth century.

These are artists who brought Native American identity, culture, and experience into the mainstream of American art on their own terms. They were trained, often formally, and worked with the full command of their medium. They exhibited nationally and internationally, earned museum retrospectives, and left behind bodies of work that continue to grow in significance.
 

The story of this group of artists is inseparable from the story of Santa Fe itself. The Institute of American Indian Art, established here in the 1960s, became a crucible for a new kind of Native American artistic expression. Instructors and students alike pushed against the expectations that had long been placed on Indigenous artists, rejecting the idea that their work should be purely traditional or decorative and insisting instead on the full range of artistic ambition.

Fritz Scholder, considered the leader of the New American Indian Art Movement, brought echoes of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Pop Art to his provocative and groundbreaking work, earning international exhibitions and a career retrospective at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. Earl Biss, a Crow Nation artist and student of Scholder's, combined mystical landscapes and figures with influences ranging from Turner and Munch to the New York School, producing canvases whose works are held in museum collections across the country. T.C. Cannon, another of Scholder's students, subverted visual stereotypes of Indigenous Americans with such force and originality that the Smithsonian honored both artists with a landmark two-man show in Washington D.C. in 1972. Kevin Red Star, who grew up on the Crow Reservation and studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, has spent decades establishing himself as historian, recorder, and ambassador for Crow culture through paintings of extraordinary vitality and cultural authority.

Their prints, paintings, and sculptures are among the most sought after works in the secondary market for Southwest and Native American art, and pieces by the most significant figures continue to appreciate in value. Collectors drawn to this category will find natural connections in our contemporary art collection, which showcases the artists who carry this legacy forward today, and our photographs collection, which offers a deeper look at the documentary and fine art photography that has long been part of the Southwest art tradition.