Taos Today, Ward Lockwood

Episode 48 Nov-2005, Anna Smith, Education Intern I’m David Cateforis with another art minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. The vivid hues in Ward Lockwood’s painting “Taos Today” tell an alluring lie. Brightly colored signs pepper the streets, pitching consumption and recreation to townspeople clad in cheerful pinks and greens. But the peoples’ careworn expressions and slack postures tell a different story. Clearly, the blankly staring man is not excited to attend the fair announced on a nearby poster; and surely the man slumped on his horse outside the gas station will not be purchasing fuel. Painted in New Mexico in 1934, “Taos Today “depicts the Great Depression’s toll on a once-prosperous town. When he painted it, Ward Lockwood was trying to earn a living in Taos, but the sagging local economy soon forced him to move elsewhere. Some aspects of the painting suggest that Lockwood saw the difficult times plaguing the country as beyond human control. He sets the scene under a darkly looming sky dominated by an eerily green, twisted tree. Nature’s menacing presence mingles with the false cheer of man-made ephemera to characterize a grim situation and the quiet endurance of those who lived through it. With thanks to Anna Smith for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.