270 Aspen Forest Near Taos

Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price 10,000.00 USD
Estimated at 20,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
Aspen Forest Near Taos
Artist: Phillips, Bert GeerDate of Birth: 1868-1956
Medium: Oil on board
Dimensions: 19 x 16 inches
Signed: Signed lower left
Verso:

In Aspen Forest Near Taos summer gives way to fall as green leaves give way to yellow. The fallen trees—the broad X in the bottom third of the work— and the scarred, black tree at left suggest the cycle of life: generation, flourishing, decay, rebirth. We may not have been there to hear the trees fall in forest, but Bert Phillips records their fall for us to see—and imagine hearing.
Bert Phillips only had to see Taos once, in 1898 on a trip with Ernest Blumenschein—before he decided to pitch his tent there forever. In fact, once Phillips moved to Taos, he rarely left. The most vocal enthusiast for founding an art colony in Taos, Phillips became one of the original members of the Taos Society of Artists. Of all the Taos artists, Phillips was perhaps the most unrepentant romantic, seeing the poetry in the people and landscape as twin aspects of a single, timeless idyll. He selected the subjects of his works for their beauty and ability to convey the romance of the area as he saw it through his vision.