In 1915, six artists who were devoted to painting in Taos and its environs—Joseph Sharp, Bert Phillips, Ernest Blumenschein, E. I. Couse, Oscar Berninghaus, and Herbert “Buck” Dunton—formed the Taos Society of Artists. During its heyday, the Society included nineteen active, associate, and honorary members and was one of the best-known artist groups in the country. Established primarily to promote and sell its members’ New Mexico and Southwestern paintings, the Society organized exhibitions that traveled to Eastern and Midwestern art centers. For many years the TSA’s “distinctively American” paintings were eagerly collected by museums and individuals throughout the country, bringing success to its members and fame to the Taos art colony. By 1927, the TSA had outlived its usefulness and was disbanded.

In 1913, the year of the famous International Exhibition of Modern Art, nicknamed the Armory Show because it was held in New York City’s 69^th Infantry Regiment Armory building, modernist artists began traveling west to interpret the land and its people according to radical new principles of color and design.

Many contemporary artists who depict life in the American West paint and sculpt in the traditional manner following Remington, Russell, and other western artists of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries to capture the romance of that colorful era. Other artists depict the American West as they see it today, finding romance of another kind in the land and life that they portray in their art.