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A Hot Time in the Old Town
Florida's Orlando Museum of Art hosts Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum starting today.
Lure of the West features sixty-four paintings and sculptures from the 1820s through the 1940s by artists fascinated with Indian and Hispanic cultures and the majestic landscapes of the western territories.
One of the hottest works in this traveling exhibition is Red Pepper Time by Oscar Berninghaus. In 1899, Oscar Berninghaus was commissioned by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad to illustrate its advertisements. This work took him to the Southwest. He spent every summer there, finally settling in Taos in 1925.
Berninghaus believed that "the canvases that come from Taos are definitely American as anything can be. We have had French, Dutch, Italian, and German art. Now we must have American art."
The artist must have been impressed with the red chili peppers hanging against the muted tones of the native homes in Lavacita, New Mexico. Like royal robes, they give the sleepy town a luster and dignity, becoming rich flags for the rustic dwellings. Two native women walk up the dirt road toward us, but our eye can't keep up with their progress. We keep focusing on those peppers, surely as source of pride and beauty—as well as seasoning—for the villagers.
Source: Amy Pastan. The Lure of the West: Treasures of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).
Pictured: Oscar Edmund Berninghaus, 1874–1952, Red Pepper Time, about 1930, oil, 25 x 30 1/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arvin Gottlieb.