the Fechin Museum

Nicolai Fechin lived in Taos only a few years, but in that time he created a masterpiece of a home as well as many paintings influenced by the area. This home is now known as the Fechin (or the Taos Art Museum).  The Fechin family moved here in 1927, at the suggestion of Mabel Dodge Luhan. They soon bought this house and began its renovation until in 1933, when they returned to New York City. 

More than a collection of Taos artists, the house is a fine creation of adobe & woodwork. I wasn't expecting to be more impressed by the home than the pieces being displayed. Fechin himself did the the woodwork, as he'd been trained in Russia by his carpenter-father. 

The Buffalo Hunter's Son, Bert Philips, 1920-25

A painting done by an artist from my hometown, was a wonderful surprise to walk in & see. 

Guadalupe Church, Cliff Harmon, 1948

Fechin bought the adobe house and then renovated it, with the help of craftsmen from the Pueblo. Much of the wood-carvings are influenced by Russian motifs, which in combination with the New Mexican-style adobe, is almost magical. It is a work of molded, curved mud walls, viga ceilings, sunny beveled glass windows, oxidizing copper fixtures and hand-carved wood.

The museum holds hundreds of paintings from Taos-based artists, many from the Taos Society (the group of artists that gathered here in the early 20th-century).