“I believe that in order to be an artist one must remain the student, must never think in terms of ‘arriving’ or ‘picture-making.’ The search for knowledge, not only of one’s craft but of one’s self and of the world around, is necessary to his growth and to the maturity of his art.”
—Emil Bisttram

Emil Bisttram (1895-1976) was a painter, teacher, and spokesman for the arts. He was born in Hungary and moved with his family to New York in 1906. As a young adult, Bisttram studied at several institutions in New York including the Art Students League and the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now Parsons The New School for Design). It was during this time that Bisttram learned to employ Dynamic Symmetry, a methodology for creating perfectly balanced and ideal compositions through the use of mathematic ratios that was popular in public schools and universities through the 1950s.

After his studies, Bisttram first taught at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art in 1920, followed by the Master Institute of the United Arts in 1923. The Master Institute, founded by Russian painter and philosopher Nicholas Roerich, was an ambitious project centered on humanistic ideals designed to unify all forms of art including design, fine art, music, dance, architecture, and language. Among the vanguard concepts introduced at the Institute that would influence Bisttram were the writings and work of Wassily Kandinsky and the late 19th century philosophical belief system, Theosophy, that sought universal harmony.

Following a 1931 Guggenheim Fellowship to study with Diego Rivera in Mexico City, Bisttram settled in Taos, New Mexico and returned to teaching as a supplemental means of support. There he established the Taos School of Art (renamed the Bisttram School of Fine Art in 1943), which would offer month-long workshops and four-year degrees with coursework in painting, drawing, composition, color, and Dynamic Symmetry. The school remained open until 1965.

While Bisttram worked in a realistic manner throughout his life, it was in the 1930s that he began to incorporate a more abstract style of painting into his milieu, an approach that was henceforth included in his teaching. In 1938, Bisttram helped found the Transcendental Painting Group, a small group of artists and students that sought to promote the ideals of non-objective painting.

Emil Bisttram and the Taos School of Art presents a selection of work by Emil Bisttram and five former students: Robert Gribbroek, Cliff Harmon, Janet Lippincott, Florence Miller Pierce, and Horace Towner Pierce, each of whom developed varying stylistic approaches influenced, in part, by the teachings of Emil Bisttram. Additionally, the exhibition will include a selection from the Permanent Collection of fellow members of the Transcendental Painting Group including Raymond Jonson, William Lumpkins, and Ed Garman.