Artist

Laura Gilpin

born Colorado Springs, CO 1891-died Santa Fe, NM 1979
Born
Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
Died
Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Biography

Gilpin studied at the Clarence White School between 1916 and 1918 and was strongly influenced by a range of teachers: White, Paul Anderson, Max Weber, Bernard Horne, and Anton Bruehl. Returning to her native Colorado, Gilpin focused on many of the most spectacular sites in the southwest, including the archaeological ruins of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians.

Gilpin's view of Colorado's famous Pikes Peak documented a western landscape that increasingly faced modern-day intrusions. Employing the delicate tones of platinum and a shallow plane of focus, with the military airplanes given emphasis as three tiny black specks in the sky, she created a dreamlike landscape in which nature no longer reigned in solitude.

Merry A. Foresta American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996)

Works by this artist (2 items)

John Melville Kelly, Sampan Fisherman, n.d., drypoint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.177
Sampan Fisherman
Daten.d.
drypoint
Not on view
John Melville Kelly, Kalama, Hawaii, n.d., drypoint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.178
Kalama, Hawaii
Daten.d.
drypoint
Not on view