Beginning Feb. 7 and running through May 11, 2014, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, in Oklahoma City, OK, will host the world premiere exhibition, Walter Ufer: Rise, Fall, Resurrection honoring the centennial anniversary of Ufer’s first trip to Taos, N.M. in 1914 and the early beginning of the Taos Society of Artists. The exhibition includes 50 works by Ufer, and more than a dozen works by the artist’s contemporaries.  

Walter Ufer: Rise, Fall, Resurrection offers examples from his two extended stays in Germany, his work in Chicago, as well as the art created in New Mexico, which later garnered him national attention. Ufer’s work is well-known for scenes of Native American life, particularly of the Pueblo Indians, and his landscape paintings executed in a high-keyed palette. The National Cowboy Museum is the only venue for this exhibition, which unveils the fascinating story of Ufer and his life as an artist. 

Despite immense financial debt, suffering from alcoholism and disabling depression, the artist was able to achieve national success in his lifetime. In 1936, two years into sobriety, Ufer died suddenly of appendicitis, leaving his family destitute. His work was all but forgotten until 1970, at which time the Phoenix Art Museum featured Ufer in two major exhibitions, thus beginning his reintroduction into mainstream art. 

More than 20 museums are lending works for the exhibition, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Academy Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Gilcrease Museum and the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art, as well as numerous private collectors from across the United States. On exhibition will include many of his masterpieces, most noteworthy being Hunger, At Rest, Jim and His Daughter, Sleep, and Their Audience.  

Additionally, the exhibition includes works by Ufer’s closest associates, members of the Taos Society of Artists, Ernest Blumenschein, Victor Higgins, E. Martin Hennings, Oscar Berninghaus, Joseph Sharp, Bert Phillips, E.I. Couse, William H. “Buck” Dunton, Julius Rolshoven, Catharine Carter Critcher. Ufer’s students are represented by works from Edmund Davison and the brothers Carl and Frank Woolsey, as well as his wife of 20 years, Mary Monrad Frederiksen Ufer. 

Ufer sought to make Taos a cultural utopia, and in many ways he succeeded as he, along with his fellow Taos Society of Artists’ members, changed an agriculturally oriented mud town into a nationally recognized art colony, a reputation that survives today. 

The exhibition is curated by Dean Porter, Ph.D., Director Emeritus of the Snite Museum of Art located at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Porter is an art historian and specialist on the Taos Society of Artists with a special focus on Ufer and Victor Higgins. 

Gerrianne Schaad
Director, Dickinson Research Center
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
1700 NE 63rd Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73111
Office 405-507-2822
Fax 405-478-6421
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