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Ad Code: 3
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from Auction House Records.
Getting Ready for the Rabbit Hunt
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Painter, print maker, and children's book illustrator Barbara Latham
was born in Walpole, Massachusetts in 1896, and lived most of her life
in the West. She was raised in Norwich, Connecticut and studied
at the Norwich Free Academy and then attended Pratt Institute from 1915
to her graduation in 1919. She then studied with Andrew Dasburg
at the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock, New York.
She
spent the early part of her career in New York, where she worked for
the Norcross Publishing Company and did illustrations for Forum magazine and the New York Times Sunday magazine.
In
1925, Latham went to Taos, New Mexico, for the first time to get
material for illustrations for a greeting card company. She met
artist Howard Cook, who was in the process of developing illustrations
for Willa Cather's novel, Death Comes to the Archbishop, and
the couple married in 1927. From 1928 to 1935, they traveled
widely including to Mexico; Springfield, Massachusetts; Paris, France;
and Norwich, Connecticut. In 1933, the couple made their home
near Taos, on the Talpa Ridge just south of the town. In 1976,
they made their final move, which was to Santa Fe.
Latham, from
the time of her first visit to Taos, created prints and paintings of
New Mexico subjects: the Taos landscape, views of the town and genre
depicting the seasons of rural life including that of the Taos
Indians. She also illustrated children's books and did pencil
drawings. Latham's illustrations for children's books included Pedro, Nina and Perrito, 1939, and Maggie,
which was chosen as one of the best books from the period of 1945 to
1950 by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. A lithographer
and etcher, she created wood engravings that have an intense,
contrasting use of black and white.
One of her paintings, Approaching Storm,
c. 1930, 10 x 13, is a tiny but expressive painting emphasizing the
orange of the earth and green of trees against the dark, stormy
sky. In style, the painting is a blend of the characteristics of
the New Mexico landscape, the colorful approach to landscape developed
by the original Taos painters and later followers, and a certain
muscularity of form suggestive of Thomas Hart Benton.
Tourist Town, Taos,
c. 1940, is an example of her painting of the village and its Indian
and Anglo inhabitants milling about in front of one-story adobe shops
and strongly-constructed, purple mountains beyond.
Latham's art became darker and moodier, somewhat surrealistic, after World War II. She died in 1989.
Among
Barbara Latham's one-woman exhibitions are the Witte Memorial Museum,
San Antonio, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Roswell Museum, New Mexico and
Weyhe Gallery, New York City. Her work is in the collections of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City,
and Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Sources include:
Jules and Nancy Heller, North American Women Artists of the 20th Century
Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, Women Artists of the American West
Internet: http://www.kargesfineart.com/links/Barbara-Latham.htm
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Biography from Altermann Galleries and Auctioneers, II:
| Born: Walpole, Massachusetts 1896
Painter, illustrator, author, graphic artist.
Mrs. Latham studied at the Norwich (Connecticut) Art School, at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and at the Art Students League in Woodstock. She came to Taos in 1925. Her Taos paintings are landscapes of the Talpa Valley, “delicate and exquisite in color and directly joyous.” She “treated the everyday occupations of her neighbors in a pleasant, realistic manner, with special attention to the seasonable pastoral pattern of life.” After World War II, her “style of painting combines surrealism and meticulously renderd still-life arrangements.” Her reputation at the time was based on her illustrations for Christmas cards and juvenile books such as “I Like Caterpillars.”
Resource: SAMUELS’ Encyclopedia of ARTISTS of THE AMERICAN WEST,
Peggy and Harold Samuels, 1985, Castle Publishing
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| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Barbara Latham is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Taos Pre 1940
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