Biography from Altermann Galleries and Auctioneers, Santa Fe III:
| Born: Carson City, Nevada 1861
Died: Winslow, Arizona 1962
Early member of Santa Fe artists colony, painter of Indians, teacher
Warren E. Rollins was raised in California. He was the pupil of Virgil Williams at the San Francisco School of Design, becoming assistant director of the school. In 1887, after further study in the East he moved to San Diego. He began to specialize in Indian subjects, traveling through the Western states. In 1900 he was in Arizona painting Hopi Canyon ruins in northern New Mexico and had a studio near El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.
Rollins was an early member of the Santa Fe art colony, along with Carlos Vierra, Gerald Cassidy, Kenneth Chapman, and Sheldon Parson, arriving in 1915 through his friendship with E.I. Couse. He had previously spent years at Pueblo Bonita, New Mexico. Rollins had the first formal exhibition in Santa Fe, showing Indian paintings before 1910, so that he was properly regarded as the “dean of the Santa Fe art colony.” Rollins had a period when he favored working in crayon, an oddity matched by other Western painters like Groll and Kihn. In the 1940s, Rollins moved to Baltimore where he drew crayon seascapes.
Resource: SAMUELS’ Encyclopedia of ARTISTS of THE AMERICAN WEST,
Peggy and Harold Samuels, 1985, Castle Publishing
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Biography from William A. Karges Fine Art - Beverly Hills:
| Warren Rollins was born in Carson City, Nevada, in 1861, and raised in northern California,
where he showed artistic talent at an early age. Following study at the San Francisco School of
Design (at which he’d later serve as Assistant Director), Rollins traveled throughout the southwest,
living with a number of Native American Tribes. From 1910-1917, Rollins lived and painted in
Pasadena until the Santa Fe Railroad Company lured him to Arizona with a studio on the Grand
Canyon. Often called “the dean of Santa Fe and Taos Art colonies,” Rollins died in Arizona in
1962. |
Biography from AskART:
| Born in Carson City, Nevada, Warren Rollins became known as the "Dean of the Santa Fe Art Colony" and was at the height of his career between 1908 and 1928. He was especially skilled at capturing the colors of the Southwest into his paintings.
He first went West as an itinerant sign painter. He trained at the San Francisco School of Design where he briefly served as Assistant Director. In 1887, he settled in San Diego, and during this period, he became interested in Indian subject matter. He and his wife and two daughters then traveled through every Western state from Mexico to Canada, and in Montana, he did a portrait of Calamity Jane. During the sitting, she drank and wept and told him her story, and this portrait, treasured because it was the only one ever done of her, was lost in a fire at the Billings Club.
By 1893, he was in Taos, then one of only four Anglo artists there, and he later returned where he had a studio near his close friend, E.I. Couse. In 1900, he spent a year in Arizona painting among the Hopi Indians and later the Navajo and Zuni tribes. The next year he began a commission for two historical paintings of the the Lewis and Clark Exposition. He painted the Grand Canyon so much that Santa Fe Railroad personnel built him a cabin on the rim at Paradise Point. Many of his paintings are in the Railroad collection.
He settled in Santa Fe and earned a prestigious reputation as a teacher of art at the Palace of the Governors. He served as first president of the Santa Fe Art Club. His works were among the earliest to be shown at the new Museum of New Mexico, and his work appeared in about twenty-five exhibitions in Santa Fe between 1916 and 1977. He also did murals for the Museum as well as the post office and Bishops Lodge. He died at the age of 100 in Winslow, Arizona.
Sources include: American Art Review, August 2004
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Biography from AskART:
| | Born in Carson City, NV on Aug. 8, 1861. Rollins was raised in Antioch, CA and showed artistic talent at an early age. About 1878 he moved to San Francisco where he studied under Virgil Williams at the School of Design for three years; he later served as assistant director of that school after winning several gold medals. In 1890 he operated an art school in Tacoma, WA and during 1892-1902 he lived in Portland, OR. Traveling constantly throughout the Southwest, he lived among the Hopi, Crow, and Blackfeet tribes and was one of the first painters to be admitted to their ceremonies. In 1910 he moved to the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena and the following year built a studio in San Gabriel where he lived until his move to Santa Fe, NM in 1917. The Santa Fe Railroad built a studio for him on the rim of the Grand Canyon and he became known as "The Dean of Taos and Santa Fe Art Colonies." As well as southwestern scenes, he also painted a few marines. During WWII he lived with his daughter in Baltimore. Rollins died in Winslow, AZ on Jan. 15, 1962. Exh: SFAA, 1883-87, 1903, 1905, 1912; Mechanics' Inst. (SF), 1887; Portland Art Club, 1890s; Royar Gallery (LA), 1911; Panama-Calif. Expo, San Diego, 1915 (silver medal). In: Santa Fe Railroad; Nevada Museum (Reno); Huntington Gallery (San Marino); Oakland Museum (Alameda Shoreline, 1881); Museum of New Mexico; Orange Co. (CA) Museum. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Who's Who in American Art 1947-59; Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); Artists and Illustrators of the Old West (Robert Taft); Artists of the American West (Samuels); The West As Art; Southern California Artists (Nancy Moure). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Warren Rollins is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
The California Art Club
Painters of Grand Canyon
Taos Pre 1940
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