1998 Vision and Spirit, The Transcendental Painting Group, Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico

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1 STUART WALKER (b. 1904, Lancaster, Kentucky d. 1940) Education John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana Exhibitions 1998 Vision and Spirit, The Transcendental Painting Group, Harwood Museum, Taos, 1997 Vision and Spirit, The Transcendental Painting Group, Jonson Gallery, University of, Albuquerque, 1996 Abstraction Across America, , Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, New York 1992 The Second Wave: American Abstraction of the 1930 s and 1940 s, Selections from the Penny and Elton Yasuna Collection, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware The Second Wave: American Abstraction of the 1930 s and 1940 s, Selections from the Penny and Elton Yasuna Collection, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 1991 The Second Wave: American Abstraction of the 1930 s and 1940 s, Selections from the Penny and Elton Yasuna Collection, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusettes The Patricia and Phillip Frost Collection, American Abstraction , National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC 1982 The Transcendental Painting Group, , Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, 1975 Jonson Gallery, The University of, Albuquerque,

2 Dorothea Whitcraft Memorial Exhibition, Museum of Albuquerque, Albuquerque, 1967 PAINTINGS ( ) IN THE GALLERY COLLECTION BY STUART WALKER, Albuquerque s First Nonrepresentational Paintings, Jonson Gallery, The University of, Albuquerque, 1950 Group Show, Jonson Gallery, The University of, Albuquerque, 1946 A LOAN EXHIBITION From the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Jonson, Presented by The Art League of, Art Gallery, Museum of, Santa Fe, A LOAN EXHIBITION From the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Jonson, Presented by The Art League of, Fine Arts Building Gallery, The University of, Albuquerque, 1941 Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery, California 1940 Transcendental Painting Group Exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Stuart Walker, Fine Arts Building of The University of, Albuquerque, Memorial Exhibition, University of, Albuquerque, Memorial Exhibition, Museum of, Santa Fe 1939 Transcendental Painting Group, Golden Gate International Exhibition, San Francisco, California Woman s Club, Albuquerque, Albuquerque Artist s Show, University of, Albuquerque, New Transcendental Painting Group, Fine Arts Festival, University of, Albuquerque, Transcendental Painting Group, Museum of, Santa Fe,

3 3 New York World s Fair, New York, New York 1938 Fiesta Show, Albuquerque, Southwestern Art, Seattle, Washington Albuquerque Art League Show, Albuquerque, Twenty-fifth Annual Exhibition of Painters & Sculptors of the Southwest, School of American Research, Museum of, Santa Fe, Transcendental Painting Group, Museum of, Santa Fe, 1937 Albuquerque Art League Show, Albuquerque, Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition , School of American Research, Museum of, Santa Fe, 1936 Albuquerque Art League Show, Albuquerque, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado 1935 Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado Southwestern Artists, Albuquerque Art League, Albuquerque, New American Paintings & Sculpture, Forty-Sixth Annual Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Twenty-Second Annual Exhibition of Painters and Sculptors of the Southwest, Art Gallery of the Museum of, School of American Research, Santa Fe, Museum of, Santa Fe, 1934 Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) Exhibition, Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, 1933 Two Man Show with Brooks Willis, Franciscan Hotel, Albuquerque, New

4 4 Annual Exhibition by Painters and Sculptors of the Southwest, Museum of New, Santa Fe, Selected Bibliography Tiska Blankenship, Vision and Spirit: The Transcendental Painting Group, "Stuart Walker" ( ); Jonson Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1997 Stuart Walker was born in Lancaster, Kentucky in Soon afterwards the family moved to an Indiana farm, and he attended high school before joining the Navy at age fifteen. Almost immediately, he became very ill from a strep infection that was not properly treated and that developed into rheumatic fever, seriously damaging his heart. Following his term with the Navy, he studied art at John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, and later with Frank Schoonover in Wilmington, Delaware. Seeking a milder climate because of his chronic health condition, he moved to Albuquerque in There, he attended classes at UNM, and with friend and fellow artist Brooks Willis, he opened Wallis Studio, a commercial studio that created and produced greeting cards and other design projects such as Maps or brass doorstops and hooks. Walker became president of the newly founded Art League of around 1929, and provided design work for league projects such as the souvenir program for their International Satiric Ball. Walker also served as Grand Master for several of their balls, which were given to "change the New Mexican art scene" by raising money for art projects. The balls were held in places like the Alvarado Hotel near the Albuquerque railroad station. Walker also played drums for dance bands, but because of his health he later shifted his focus to the more sedate realm of the piano. Until around 1930, Walker focused on Southwestern subjects for his representational landscapes and floral compositions in oil and watercolor. Walker and Willis together painted a mural in Albuquerque at the Nob Hill Drugstore for which they bartered for food. Around 1935 through the Works Progress Administration, Walker completed a series of ten watercolors (now missing) for the U.S. Forest Service, and he joined with Willis to complete a mural for the Bernalillo County Courthouse (now in a private collection following demolition of the building). One of Walker's two WPA paintings in the Golden Library is an abstraction. Walker became interested in Modernist painting styles during the late 1920s and early 1930s when he was associating with other artists in Albuquerque and Santa Fe (including Gina [Schnaufer] Knee, James Morris, and William Lumpkins) who shared this interest.

5 5 In the early 1930s Walker began to abstract landscapes studies that led him to create non- objective canvases based on color, rhythm, and design. Walker's shift was brought about, in part, by a study of Kandinsky's early work (the period), which also concentrated on abstracted landscape motifs, and by his awareness of Kandinsky's Bauhaus works. Stuart Walker was an original member of the Transcendental Painting Group founded in 1938 in Santa Fe. The members were Raymond Jonson, William Lumpkins, Emil Bisttram, Robert Gribbroek, Lawren Harris, Florence Miller, Agnes Pelton, H. Towner Pierce, and Walker. Walker developed a distinctive style with affinities to Art Deco and demonstrated a concern with strong structural elements that mixed geometric figures with more organic ones. Characteristic of his work was the use of muted natural colors reflecting a sensibility of the landscape. Walker described his work as a portrayal of abstract rhythms in life forms. When he stated for the UNM student newspaper, The University of Lobo, that the paintings were purely decorative in nature- - free from mystic interpretation- - [Raymond] Jonson clarified to the interviewer that Walker "was merely being modest." After two years of hospitalizations and failing health, he died. Walker's death at the age of thirty- six was a sad loss to his Transcendental Painting Group friends, who arranged to have two memorial exhibitions, one at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe and a second at University of 's Fine Arts Building sponsored by the Art League.

The Life & Work of Winslow Homer NAPOLEON SARONY, PHOTOGRAPH: WINSLOW HOMER TAKEN IN N.Y., 1880, 1880, BOWDOIN COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART

The Life & Work of Winslow Homer NAPOLEON SARONY, PHOTOGRAPH: WINSLOW HOMER TAKEN IN N.Y., 1880, 1880, BOWDOIN COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART Early Life Winslow Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1836.