Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960)
New Mexi, Peon
Museum of the American West - Los Angeles, CA
Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960) was an american painter. He was offered a scholarship to study violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory when he was seventeen. After a year of music training, however, he chose to follow his interest in art. He studied first at the Cincinnati Art Academy, then at the Art Students League in New York and the Académie Julian in Paris, where in 1895 he met Joseph Henry Sharp, who had already been to Taos, and Bert G. Phillips.
On the advice of Sharp, Bumenschein and Phillips set out on a sketching trip to Taos in 1898. Blumenschein returned to Paris in 1899 and remained, with the exception of one trip home, until 1909.
From 1910 until 1918, he spent summers in New Mexico and the rest of the year in New York, where he continued to work as an illustrator and to teach at the Art Students League. In 1915 he was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists with Phillips, Sharp, Oscar E. Berninghaus, E. Irving Couse, and W. Herbert Dunton. His colleagues regarded him as the most accomplished painter of the group. After moving permanently to Taos in 1919, Blumenschein and his artist wife Mary contributed significantly to the development of the art community.