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Lot Essay
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, and studying in Germany before settling in Chicago, Walter Ufer first visited Taos, New Mexico, in 1914 when art patron Carter Harrison offered to subsidize a painting trip for the artist to the Southwest. Ufer found in New Mexico a wealth of imagery that led him to declare, "I believe that if America gets a National Art it will come more from the Southwest than from the Atlantic Board." (as quoted in Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Walter Ufer, N.A., exhibition catalogue, New York, 1928, n.p.) Beyond the Southwestern locale, for Ufer, there was no greater American truth than the Native American and his daily life. He sought honesty in his depictions, seeking an original snapshot into the contemporary life of his Native subjects. Combining this earnest focus on the local daily happenings with a Modernist approach to the distinct light and color of the Southwestern region, Tom and Jim exemplifies Ufer’s unique style of Western Art that has garnered him prestige since his first trip to the region.
Ufer once commented, "I paint the Indian as he is. In the garden digging--in the field working--riding amongst the sage--meeting his woman in the desert--angling for trout--in meditation..." (as quoted in Pioneer Artists of Taos, Denver, Colorado, 1983, pp. 128-29) Indeed, sensitively aware of how his artistic predecessors had rendered similar scenes, Ufer felt he was in a unique position to capture an authentic contemporary glimpse of the evolving life of the Taos Indian. He was determined to portray the Native Americans of the early twentieth century, not as remote aboriginal figures, but as men and women at a cultural crossroads, pressured by the dominant American culture yet maintaining their traditional heritage. With this focus on a realistic depiction of contemporary life, Ufer can be seen as a sort of Ashcan School painter of the West, seeking in his art the same unidealized representation of the everyday as artists like Robert Henri, George Bellows and George Luks. As Stephen L. Good writes, “There is a direct and vital apprehension of personality, a psychological immediacy that is couched in much the same technical terms as a portrait by Henri or Luks or Bellows. The impact, not surprisingly, is similar. It was this quality that would set Ufer's work apart in style and tone from much of the painting in Taos which preceded him." (Pioneer Artists of Taos, p. 128) In so doing, Ufer reveals drama in the ordinary and creates monumental compositions from the seemingly mundane.
Accordingly, in Tom and Jim, Ufer conscientiously pays careful attention to the everyday dress and appearance of the Indian as he walks his horse down the sandy roads of Taos. His honest depiction is informed by his close relationship with his subject, Jim Mirabel, a friend and model who regularly appeared in not only his own paintings but also pictures by other members of the Taos Society. According to Kenneth Adams, the youngest member of the organization, “[Older artists] introduced us to their Indian friends who worked with them as models and these friends in turn found models for us.” (The New Mexico Quarterly, vol. 21, 1951, p. 151) Jim appears in Ufer’s pictures spanning nearly twenty years, including Jim and His Daughter (1923, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). In the present work, he is seen with his horse named Tom.
While his subject is a casually familiar friend, Ufer’s execution of Tom and Jim is, by contrast, vibrant and intense. Employing vigorous brushwork and highly saturated color, the composition is pared down to minimal planes of light and shadow. Broad areas of the characteristic Southwestern landscape are composed in animated washes of color, which saturate the canvas with luminosity and texture. Ufer's fluid, curvilinear draftsmanship unites the scene and stimulates the eye. In fact, despite his European training as a studio artist, Ufer often painted en plein-air to better capture the brilliant sunlight of the Southwest. Here, the light transforms the scene into a brilliant tapestry of color and creates undulating shadows that seem to take on a life of their own. Ufer creates a rich, painterly surface with a broad treatment of details and a boldness and fluidity of execution that is decidedly modern.
Tom and Jim masterfully embodies a current and relevant American art, breaking from the passé traditions of earlier Romantic depictions of the West to render familiar subjects in a new, fresh and modern manner. Yet, Ufer still characteristically lends a subtle monumentality and thoughtfulness to each of his figures, reflecting the importance and endurance of their unique history and culture. As demonstrated in Tom and Jim, "They seem suspended in a sort of elegiac tranquility, evoking bittersweet sentiments of loss and sadness. These paintings, often executed with superb technical means, give the sense of an exalted, refined realm of values, a world at once exotic and safely domesticated, which a powerful American society had subdued and left behind, but still held in a redemptive embrace." (Pioneer Artists of Taos, p. 14)
Ufer once commented, "I paint the Indian as he is. In the garden digging--in the field working--riding amongst the sage--meeting his woman in the desert--angling for trout--in meditation..." (as quoted in Pioneer Artists of Taos, Denver, Colorado, 1983, pp. 128-29) Indeed, sensitively aware of how his artistic predecessors had rendered similar scenes, Ufer felt he was in a unique position to capture an authentic contemporary glimpse of the evolving life of the Taos Indian. He was determined to portray the Native Americans of the early twentieth century, not as remote aboriginal figures, but as men and women at a cultural crossroads, pressured by the dominant American culture yet maintaining their traditional heritage. With this focus on a realistic depiction of contemporary life, Ufer can be seen as a sort of Ashcan School painter of the West, seeking in his art the same unidealized representation of the everyday as artists like Robert Henri, George Bellows and George Luks. As Stephen L. Good writes, “There is a direct and vital apprehension of personality, a psychological immediacy that is couched in much the same technical terms as a portrait by Henri or Luks or Bellows. The impact, not surprisingly, is similar. It was this quality that would set Ufer's work apart in style and tone from much of the painting in Taos which preceded him." (Pioneer Artists of Taos, p. 128) In so doing, Ufer reveals drama in the ordinary and creates monumental compositions from the seemingly mundane.
Accordingly, in Tom and Jim, Ufer conscientiously pays careful attention to the everyday dress and appearance of the Indian as he walks his horse down the sandy roads of Taos. His honest depiction is informed by his close relationship with his subject, Jim Mirabel, a friend and model who regularly appeared in not only his own paintings but also pictures by other members of the Taos Society. According to Kenneth Adams, the youngest member of the organization, “[Older artists] introduced us to their Indian friends who worked with them as models and these friends in turn found models for us.” (The New Mexico Quarterly, vol. 21, 1951, p. 151) Jim appears in Ufer’s pictures spanning nearly twenty years, including Jim and His Daughter (1923, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). In the present work, he is seen with his horse named Tom.
While his subject is a casually familiar friend, Ufer’s execution of Tom and Jim is, by contrast, vibrant and intense. Employing vigorous brushwork and highly saturated color, the composition is pared down to minimal planes of light and shadow. Broad areas of the characteristic Southwestern landscape are composed in animated washes of color, which saturate the canvas with luminosity and texture. Ufer's fluid, curvilinear draftsmanship unites the scene and stimulates the eye. In fact, despite his European training as a studio artist, Ufer often painted en plein-air to better capture the brilliant sunlight of the Southwest. Here, the light transforms the scene into a brilliant tapestry of color and creates undulating shadows that seem to take on a life of their own. Ufer creates a rich, painterly surface with a broad treatment of details and a boldness and fluidity of execution that is decidedly modern.
Tom and Jim masterfully embodies a current and relevant American art, breaking from the passé traditions of earlier Romantic depictions of the West to render familiar subjects in a new, fresh and modern manner. Yet, Ufer still characteristically lends a subtle monumentality and thoughtfulness to each of his figures, reflecting the importance and endurance of their unique history and culture. As demonstrated in Tom and Jim, "They seem suspended in a sort of elegiac tranquility, evoking bittersweet sentiments of loss and sadness. These paintings, often executed with superb technical means, give the sense of an exalted, refined realm of values, a world at once exotic and safely domesticated, which a powerful American society had subdued and left behind, but still held in a redemptive embrace." (Pioneer Artists of Taos, p. 14)