Bert Geer Phillips – The Cornerstone Of The Taos Society Of Artists

By Author: Harris Symonds
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Bert Geer Phillips (1868-1956) was born in Hudson, New York and studied fine art at the Art Students League, in New York City. He studied at the Julian Academy in Paris, where he met Ernest Blumenchein and J.H. Sharp. Sharp encouraged the two young artists to travel to the southwest and draw natural inspiration for their art from the beautiful landscape and the peoples of the New Mexico pueblos.

When Phillips travelled with Blumenchein to Taos for the first time in 1898, he knew that Taos was to be his home. He worked hard to bring other artists to Taos, to make it possible for them to stay there and he also promoted the idea of forming an art colony. He became the de facto founder of the Taos Society of Artists, the central group in the arts scene in Taos. By 1915, there were more than a hundred artists working in Taos, a testament to the natural beauty of the land but it was also due to Bert Phillips unwavering belief that Taos was an artist’s hotspot. In the summer of 1915 Phillips along with Blumenchein, Couse, Sharp, Berginhaus and Dunton joined to form the now famous Taos Society of Artists. . According ...
... to Blumenchein,”Phillips is the foundation on which the Taos group is built!” The Taos Society of Artists was an instant success. The shows travelled to all the major cities of America and received huge publicity throughout the country. Replacements for sold pictures were being sent out of Taos every week. The Taos Society was particularly helpful to Phillips as he was not a savvy businessman, nor was he interested in competing in the art market with the same enthusiasm as the other artists.

The West had captured Phillips imagination early in life when he found an arrowhead, lost by a Mohegan Indian. Kit Carson was the artist’s boyhood hero. Before he saw the West, Phillips had a successful career painting western illustrations, invented from research. It was but natural for him to be enthralled by the West when he finally saw it. When Bert Phillips first saw Taos he was 30 and a fully trained artist who no longer felt he needed any more European academics.

Phillips creativity was grounded in realism, it was colored by his romantic ideals. His style never bent towards the modernist vein of work which was being practiced by his fellow artists. Instead he developed his knowledge of the dress and customs of the natives and painted them in romantic surroundings, often by firelight. This took a significant toll on his vision. Bert Phillips completed
several major mural commissions, including that of the Polk County Courthouse in Iowa.
Phillips passed away in 1956, leaving behind a significant contribution to one of the most important and distinctly American art movements in history.

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