Indian Bake Ovens, Taos

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, in graphite, lower right: Laura Gilpin 1923 [incorrect, should be September 26, 1926]; signed and dated, in graphite, lower right, on mount: Laura Gilpin / 1923; inscribed, in graphite, lower left, on mount: To Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Fisher / With the best of wishes; numbered, in graphite, lower right corner of mount: 90; inscribed, in black ink, on reverse of mount: No. 1 / Indian Bake Ovens, Taso. / by / Laura Gilpin / 1215 Wood Ave. / Colorado Springs, Colo.; numbered, in graphite, on gummed label with red border, reverse of mount: 90; numbered, in graphite, on reverse of mount: 217 [encircled]; printed label, on reverse of mount: This Certifies: / that this print is one of the / three hundred and four prints / exhibited at the / TENTH ANNUAL SALON / of PHOTOGRAPHY / under the auspieces of the / CAMERA PICTORIALISTS of / LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Label

Laura Gilpin was drawn to the organic forms of American Southwest architecture. While conceiving her art in modern terms—foremost by arranging lights and darks to create compelling compositions—she tended to shy away from the urban subjects and engineered geometries that attracted her fellow modernist photographers, such as Peter Stackpole (adjacent). Gilpin found the soft, hand-made ovens and adobe structures of the Southwest to be suggestive of an enduring culture that thrived despite modernity, not because of it. Her medium of choice, platinum printing, lent itself to her imagery in two ways: it was able to capture the subtle shifts of tone inherent to her subjects and it required, like the structures she depicted, a great deal of careful hand-crafting.

Gilpin was primarily a Western photographer, living most of her life in Colorado. Though she studied photography in New York—and her mentor was the photographer Gertrude Kasebier, who was based in the East—her repertoire featured subjects identified with the West and Southwest, especially landscapes and portraits of Native American life.

From the 2019 exhibition Cubism and Its Aftershocks, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

Course History

ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014

ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014

ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

Exhibition History

American Works on Paper to 1950: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22-December 9, 2007.

Citrin Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 24-July 22, 2019.

Tenth Annual Salon of Photography, under the auspices of the Camera Pictorialist of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, 1926.

Publication History

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 173, no. 143.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 148, ill. plate no. 79.

Provenance

The artist; given to Arthur Addison Fisher (1878-1965), Denver, Colorado; Gertrude and Herbert Calvin Fisher [Class of 1932, (1910-2006), Denver, Colorado; given to present collection, 1982.

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Subjects