Luchita Hurtado, Encounter, 1971. Oil on canvas. 50 x 95 3/4 inches. Courtesy The Estate of Luchita Hurtado and Hauser & Wirth

Luchita Hurtado

UNM News:

“This exhibit unearths an important part of Taos’ art history that has been uncelebrated,” says Harwood Museum’s Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Nicole Dial-Kay. “Taos is part of Luchita Hurtado’s history, which is now internationally known. She will be remembered in the art history canon.”

In 2019, Hurtado received a lifetime achievement award from Americans for the Arts and was acknowledged as one of the year’s most influential figures by TIME100. Hurtado’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries in London and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Born in the Venezuelan coastal city of Maiquetía Nov. 28, 1920, Luchita Hurtado came to the United States at the age of eight and spent her formative years in New York living with her mother, siblings, aunts, and cousins. Her mother worked as a seamstress, perhaps influencing Hurtado, who designed her own clothing throughout her life. Hurtado commuted for two hours each day to attend an all-girls art high school so she could study art and theatre. She went on to take classes at the New York Art Students League. A lifelong traveler, Hurtado lived in the Dominican Republic, Mexico City, Rome, and Chile, as well as in the U.S. cities of New York, Mill Valley, and Santa Monica. In the 1970s, after visiting Taos for many years, she and her family bought land and built a house in the nearby village of Arroyo Seco.

Hurtado was friends with many prominent modern artists, among them Frida Kahlo, Isamu Noguchi, Rufino Tamayo, Judy Chicago and Agnes Martin. She was intricately connected with Dynaton, a brief art movement which included Austrian-born artist Wolfgang Paalen (Hurtado’s second husband), British painter Gordon Onslow Ford and American artist Lee Mullican (Hurtado’s third husband). Hurtado was part of the art scenes of New York, Mexico City, Taos, and Los Angeles; and her work is associated with the surrealist, Mexican muralist, feminist, and environmentalist movements. While she exhibited her work from time to time starting in the 1970s, it was not Hurtado’s focus.

“My mother’s art practice was extremely private. It was between her and the Universe,” her son John Mullican said. “She did it when we were asleep or when we were not at home. To me, it felt very magical and holy.

Drawings or canvases would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, on her studio walls. I felt it was a connection to a creative source much bigger and much more powerful than she ever talked about or shared. It was her practice and no one else’s, pure and simple.”

Longtime close friend and gallery owner Judith Kendall recalls seeing two of Hurtado’s pieces displayed in the artist’s adobe home in Arroyo Seco. However, though Hurtado shared many aspects of her life with Kendall, she did not speak about her art practice. Few of her Taos friends knew Hurtado as an artist, but she is widely remembered for her love of friends, family, food, art, and her exquisite handmade clothing.

“Luchita was an unbelievably open-spirited person. When you walked in the door her face would light up, and she would say, ‘Here you are!’ She was interested in everyone and would focus on them,” Kendall said. “She was a totally gracious and beautiful human being … an artist in life.”

Many of Hurtado’s closest Taos friends were artists or art enthusiasts. They include Alyce Frank, Larry Frank, Judith Kendall, Happy Price, Ken Price, Larry Bell, Janet Webb, Hank Saxe, and Cynthia Patterson. This show allows many of them to view the work that Hurtado created while in Taos. Many of the pieces exhibited as part of “Luchita Hurtado: Earth & Sky Interjected” feature the land and sky of Taos.

“This Harwood show is a full circle moment for me and a further exploration of my mother’s incredible talent,” John Mullican said. “I always said my mother’s life, as an artist, was the ‘secret sauce no one knew about.’ I am thrilled for people to see this show since Taos has always been such a huge part of her life and our family. As people continue to learn more about my mom and her art practice, the beauty and power of Taos will become more evident. It is such a unique and beautiful place and was always such an anchor for her.”

Luchita Hurtado, “The Umbilical Cord of the Earth is the Moon”. Courtesy photo