Exhibition at Harwood Museum Looks at Mabel Dodge Luhan, Pioneer of "Southwest Modernism"
Luhan influenced legions of European and American movers and shakers, including D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, John Marin, John Collier, Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, and Andrew Dasburg, to find in northern New Mexico’s physical and cultural landscapes new aesthetic, social, and cultu
Opening May 22 in Taos, New Mexico, Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company: American Moderns and the West is a major traveling exhibition curated by MaLin Wilson-Powell and Lois Rudnick.
Organized by the Harwood Museum of Art, this exhibition focuses on the life and times of one of the early 20th century’s most significant yet underrecognized cultural figures: Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879–1962). Luhan spent her life building utopian communities, first as an expatriate in Florence, Italy, where Gertrude Stein introduced her to the avant-garde of European modernists including Picasso and Matisse; and next in Greenwich Village, New York, where she hosted one of the most famous salons of the 20th century and was a key organizer of the 1913 Armory Show. Beginning in 1918, Mabel Dodge brought modernism to Taos, New Mexico, putting it on the national and international maps of the avant-garde and creating a “Paris West” in the American Southwest.
From 1918 to 1947, Luhan influenced legions of European and American movers and shakers, including D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, John Marin, John Collier, Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, and Andrew Dasburg, to find in northern New Mexico’s physical and cultural landscapes new aesthetic, social, and cultural perspectives on modern life. The work of these artists will be presented in relation to Pueblo and Hispano artists to examine the cultural exchange that formed a unique “Southwest Modernism.”
Exhibition dates:
May 22–September 11, 2016
Symposium Weekend
June 17–19, 2016
For a schedule of events and more information, please visit mabeldodgeluhan.org/calendar and harwoodmuseum.org.
