Andrew Dasburg

1887 – 1979

Though Andrew Dasburg first came to Taos in 1915, he didn't make a permanent move to the Southwest until 1930 but divided his time between working in Taos and Santa Fe and painting and teaching in Woodstock, New York. It was the unique landscape of the Southwest, not its native inhabitants, which inspired Dasburg's personal form of cubism.

In 1935 Dasburg was stricken with Addison's Disease. Dasburg survived, but his output was severely restricted. Finally, in 1946 he was able to begin drawing and painting again, and he continued to paint into the late 1970's, when he completed his Taos Series lithographs.

Dasburg died in his home in Talpa, New Mexico, on August 13th, 1979. An exhibition planned before his death by the Art Museum of the University of New Mexico became a memorial show. It opened October 28th, 1980 and continued into 1981, travelling to the Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, Texas; the University of Texas Art Museum in Austin; the Amarillo Art Center; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln; the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

During his life Dasburg received Guggenheim Fellowships, Ford Foundation Grants, honorary doctorates and numerous retrospective shows. His works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Fine Art; the Denver Art Museum; and in many other prestigious galleries and private collections.