western american art

Rabbit Hunt, E. Martin Hennings

Like other classically trained artists who came West, Ernest Martin Hennings used his academic training to depict a newly discovered subject in American art—the land and people of New Mexico. Born in New Jersey, he graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and later studied at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. In 1921 he settled in Taos.

There he adopted a sunny palette reflective of the locale and produced paintings that feature an art nouveau decorative elegance while focusing on an ordinary moment, such as the rabbit hunt here. Just as the scene is very specific, so too are the Indians, who are treated as individuals and not stereotypes. The man on horseback sports a cross-cultural outfit: a tennis sweater, cuffed shirt, and trousers combined with traditional long braids and moccasins.

American Indian Art