Esther Bruton and Margaret Bruton travel to Taos

Taos Woman by Margaret Bruton
Photo – ColoradoBlvd.net/Jean Sudbury
Used with permission

Late in 1928, Margaret and Esther went to Taos and Santa Fe to study, paint, and draw. (Helen stayed back in California to work on other projects.) Taos has been a thriving art colony since the Taos Society of Artists was formed in 1915 by three academically trained artists who were attracted to the awe-inspiring landscape and fascinated by the native Pueblo people.  These artists were attempting to create and promote a “Real American Art” based on uniquely American cultures and imagery.¹ 

1929 was an especially exciting and dynamic time for the Brutons to be in Taos.  Architectural historian John Crosse writes extensively about the time period in his blog post, Miguel Covarrubias in Taos, 1929. Crosse describes Taos as “the Bohemian crossroads of the Southwest largely through the efforts of the town's doyenne Mabel Dodge Luhan.”  In 1929, the area attracted artistic luminaries such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Mexican caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias, and authors Ella Young and Mary Austin.  It is reasonable to assume that the Brutons ran in the same circle and would have interacted with these fascinating individuals. 

Margaret and Esther were deeply inspired by their time in New Mexico; artistically it was a very productive time for them, and the work born of that trip was some of their best. Esther’s woodcut Valdez, New Mexico appeared on the cover of the December 1928 Carmelite.  Mabel Dodge Luhan described the scene much as Esther depicted it:  "We drove down the mountain into Valdez, that village that from the brow of the hill looks like a child's toy: a tiny plaza with an old church in the center, and houses on either side." 

The Carmelite, December 1928
Courtesy Henry Meade Williams Local History Department
Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel, CA

John Crosse suggests that Esther’s print could have inspired a painting by John O’Shea which has a similar vantage point. 

Margaret’s paintings from New Mexico were favorably received, in particular her outstanding modernist painting, Taos Woman.  One critic enthused, “The outstanding canvas among the several paintings of American Indian subjects which Margaret Bruton is showing is, in our opinion, ‘Taos Woman.’ The painting is solid, sure and clean.  But above and beyond that, it is an exceptionally expressive work... It is the Pueblo woman of today, clinging to the last vestige of her people, and gazing hopelessly into a future which does not exist.”² The Los Angeles Times reported that Margaret’s portraits of Pueblo Indians “are all staked on clean, modern methods of working on colors or tones that are definite, steering clear of any borderland of sentimental haze that might put over works less soundly conceived.”³

Yet it was Esther’s works that caused an even greater sensation amongst the critics.  Esther had painted two screens, each with three panels, depicting Native American scenes inspired by her travels in New Mexico.  You can read about them in my blogpost here.

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¹“100 Years of Taos Art.”  Taos.org 

²Junius Cravens. The Argonaut, 8 Dec. 1929, p. 6.

³Arthur Millier, Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 1930, p. 18.