From Baca to Burlin: An Insider's View

Fine Arts Museum, Museum of New Mexico

Left: Plaza, Looking North, Santa Fe, February, 1997; Right: Detail of Front Facade, Fine Arts Museum, Santa Fe, 1997, photos by John Hazeltine

Santa Fe, NM

505-827-4468

http://www.nmculture.org/cgi-bin/instview.cgi?_recordnum=MFA

From Baca to Burlin: An Insider's View

The Museum of Fine Arts has more than 15,000 works stored in a vault. Even the museum's curators are awed by the richness of the collection. Organized alphabetically, by size and media, the art encompasses a variety of styles and subject matter. "Curators cannot escape seeing quirky juxtapositions between works connected only by letters," says Joseph Traugott, Curator of 20th Century Art at the Museum of Fine Arts. (left: Josef Bakos, Sanctuario at Chimayo, 1939, watercolor on paper)

Traugott selected the pieces for From Baca to Burlin: An Insider's View, an exhibition of 28 works from the museum' s permanent collection. Opening Friday, October 29, and running through May 28, 2000, the show features artists whose last names all begin with the letter "B." (left: Oscar Berninghaus, The Rabbit Hunter, c. 1945, oil on canvas)

"This group of works presents the collection as I often see it," Traugott says. "The same could be done with any letter of the alphabet."

The works presented in From Baca to Burlin include engravings, photographs, drawings, paintings and sculpture representing a cross section of the museum's holdings. Nineteenth-century pieces include Albert Bierstadt's 1863 engraving The Rocky Mountains (right) and Karl Bodmer' s 1843 portrait Assiniboin Indians.

Donald Beauregard's pre-1914 painting Evening at the Pueblo, Ernest L. Blumenschein's 1923 oil on canvas Dance at Taos (left) and Oscar E. Berninghaus's The Rabbit Hunter are some of the 20th century works in the exhibit, along with works by Gina Knee Brook, Patrocino Barela andJosef Bakos. Contemporary artists include Maria Baca, Thomas Barrow, Larry Bell and Mala Breuer.

All images courtesy of and from the collection of Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe. Please Note: RLM does not endorse sites behind external links. We offer them for your additional research; external links were chosen on the basis of being the most informative online source at the time of our search.

Editor's note: On January 9, 2006 TFAO volunteer B. A. Hazeltine granted permission to Resource Library to publish the following photograph. One of the opportunities available to TFAO volunteers is photographing on-location scenes that relate to views depicted in works by historic artists. Since 1997 images of thousands of paintings and sculptures have been published in Resource Library in connection with its articles. The images are of a myriad objects in nature including landscapes, marine scenes, architectural structures, and more. Many people are fascinated with viewing the artistic interpretation of scenes through painting or sculpture in proximity to realistic photographs of the same scenes. These juxtapositions are educational for historic and other reasons, are enjoyable to see, and provide a window for further understanding the impression of nature created by the artist. Resource Library's readers further appreciate this photography as art in its own right. Volunteers are invited to survey the images of paintings and sculptures contained in Resource Library and choose related scenes for their photography.

Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional source by visiting the sub-index page for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe in Resource Library.

rev. 1/9/06

For further biographical information on selected artists cited in this article please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.

rev. 11/1/10

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