The Taos Artists are painters, printmakers, and sculptors who were drawn to the small northern New Mexico town of Taos beginning in the 1890s, initially by accident and then by word of mouth, as artists recognized the extraordinary quality of light, landscape, and cultural life they found there. The founding of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915 formalized what had already become one of the most significant artist communities in the United States.

What united these artists was not a single style or movement but a shared commitment to painting the life and landscape of northern New Mexico. They depicted the Pueblo communities, the high desert terrain, the mountains and rivers of the Rio Grande corridor, and the daily life of the Hispanic and Native American communities that had been there for centuries. Their work introduced the Southwest to audiences across the country and around the world.

The term Taos Artists is used broadly to include not only the founding generation but also the many painters and printmakers who came to Taos in subsequent decades, drawn by the same qualities that had attracted their predecessors. The tradition they established remains alive today.

The Taos art colony is one of the most important chapters in the history of American regionalist art. At a time when the art world was dominated by European movements and eastern American institutions, a group of painters in a small New Mexico town was producing work of extraordinary originality and cultural significance. Their paintings documented a way of life that was changing rapidly and preserved images of Pueblo ceremony, Hispanic village life, and high desert landscape that might otherwise have been lost entirely.

The Taos Society of Artists brought national and international attention to the region, exhibiting their work in major cities and establishing Taos as a destination for artists, collectors, and eventually tourists. The art colony they created attracted writers, photographers, and intellectuals as well as painters, making Taos one of the most creatively fertile communities in twentieth century America.

The legacy of the Taos artists is felt throughout the broader Southwest art world. Their commitment to painting from direct observation of the land and its people established a standard that subsequent generations of Southwest artists have honored and built upon. Works by the Taos painters are now held in major museum collections across the country and remain among the most sought after in the secondary market for American art.

Collectors interested in the broader context of this tradition will find natural connections in our Impressionism collection, as many of the Taos painters worked in an Impressionist-influenced style shaped by their European training. Those drawn to the landscape subjects that defined so much Taos painting will also want to explore our landscape collection. And for works by the artists who carried the Southwest art tradition into the modern era, our Old Masters collection offers an essential complement.