Emil Bisttram

Emil Bisttram was born in Hungary, near the Romanian border, in 1895. When he was 11 years old, his family immigrated to New York City. Emil grew up in the tenement buildings that had become the destination for so many Eastern European immigrant families. He was a talented artist, and after a few years began his schooling at the National Academy of Art and Design, then Cooper Union, Parsons, and The Art Student's League. Most of his studies were completed through night courses, as he was working as a commercial artist to support himself. His eagerness to study would translate to a love of and great skill for teaching, which he commenced soon after graduation—first at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, and later at the Master Institute of the Roerich Museum.

Compelled by a desire to escape the hardships of life in New York following the stark market crash, Bisttram fist visited Taos during the Summer of 1930. However, his initial visit was nearly his last. While enthralled by the beauty of New Mexico, Bisttram was endlessly frustrated by his first attempts at painting there: "Whenever I tried to paint what was before me I was frustrated by the grandeur of the scenery and the limitless space. Above all, a strange, almost mystic quality of light."

Perhaps disheartened by what he may have perceived as his own limitations as an artist, Bisttram returned to New York. Controverting his apprehensions, it would only be a year until he would a Guggenheim Fellowship to study mural painting in Mexico under the guidance of Diego Rivera. Numerous mural commissions were to follow throughout his career, including works for the Department of Justice in Washington D.C., The Taos County Courthouse, New Mexico, and the Federal Courthouse in Roswell, New Mexico.

After having worked with Rivera, Bisttram returned immediately to Taos, and that same year founded the Taos School of Art, of which he would remain the director for the rest of his life. Bisttram came to be much admired as a teacher as skilled at explaining concepts of composition, drawing and painting as he was at applying those concepts to his own paintings. Further demonstrating his skills as an administrator, in the following year, Bisttram started the first commercial art gallery in Taos, the Heptagon Gallery.

Bisttram first came to Taos as a representational painter. His canvases show stylized renderings of Native American dancers, portraits of natives and Mexicans, as well as depictions of local architecture. However, under the influence of the work and philosophy of Wassily Kandinsky, he began to experiment with non-objective forms in his paintings. Kandinsky’s theories are distinctly evidenced in the color palette and linear relationships of Bisstram’s more abstract compositions.

In 1938, Bisttram, along with Raymond Johnson and several other painters, founded the Transcendental Painting Group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The group’s aim was to work to bring painting beyond the appearance of the physical world. Work of this type had been introduced to Europe at least two decades earlier, but this was something new to America. Despite the stated goal, Bisttram often maintained elements that were at least semi-representational in his canvases.

Bisttram continued to be extremely active in the artistic growth of New Mexico for the rest of his life. In 1952, he co-founded the Taos Art Association, and in '59 won the Grand Prize for painting at the New Mexico State Fair. Also in 1959, a retrospective of his work was held at the Harwood Art Museum in Taos. As a final honor and tribute to his significant contributions to the artistic community and identity of New Mexico, beginning in 1975, April 7th was declared "Emil Bisttram Day," a New Mexico state holiday. The following year, 1976, Emil Bisttram died at the age of 81.