Art & Architecture

• John Gaw Meem
• Gustave Baumann
• Walter Gilbert
• Laura Gilpin
• Rose Greely
• Peter Hurd
• Paul Lantz
• Larry Miller
• Pop Schaeffer
• Robert Woodman

John Gaw Meem 
The buildings at Los Poblanos were designed by famed architect John Gaw Meem, widely considered New Mexico's greatest 20th century architect and whose name is synonymous with Santa Fe style. Meem, famous for combining traditional regional architecture and twentieth century sensibilities, inspired New Mexico's classic style, known as Territorial Revival. On this page are some of the finest artists and craftsmen of New Mexico, all of whom were commissioned to do work at Los Poblanos ranging from fresco murals to elaborate wood carvings. The result is one of Meem's finest designs.

Gustave Baumann 
Gustave Baumann is one of New Mexico's beloved artists and is considered to be one of the finest woodcut printers of the 20th century. In addition to the floral and Native American design patterns he carved into massive pine doors at Los Poblanos, he also carved San Ysidro Labrador with motifs of corn and wheat over the central mantel in the formal ballroom. For fans of his prints, Los Poblanos provides a unique opportunity to see his genius as a carver up close.

Walter Gilbert 
One of the only Albuquerque artists to have worked at Los Poblanos, Walter Gilbert craftsmanship as a ironsmith is unparalleled in New Mexico during the 20th century. Working closely with John Gaw Meem, Gilbert intricately crafted all the iron door handles which depicting San Ysidro, the massive oversized door hinges, and even the wrought iron gates of the gardens.

Laura Gilpin (1891-1979) 
Laura Gilpin is one of the most important photographers of the Southwest. She portrayed the American Southwest and its people with great sensitivity, producing a fine and unique visual record both of the landscape and in particular of the Pueblo and Navajo Indians. She also made her living photographing important architecture, which she captured with that same sensitivity. Gilpin took many beautiful photographs of the buildings and gardens of Los Poblanos, which can now be seen by visitors for the first time in over 70 years. A special thank you to the Amon Carter Museum for reprinting this work in our behalf.

Rose Greely 
The formal Spanish-style gardens were designed in 1932 by Rose Greely, a pioneer female landscape architect. Greely was the first female graduate of Harvard's landscape architecture program and worked primarily in the Washington DC area designing formal residential gardens. Coincidentally, her roommate at Harvard was Meem's future wife, Faith. Los Poblanos is her only known work in the southwest and features vibrant flower beds irrigated with river water, Spanish tile fountains, rose cutting gardens, winding pathways, and an allée of mature Cottonwood trees.

Peter Hurd (1904-1984) 
Peter Hurd is widely considered one of New Mexico's most important painters. He was born and raised in Roswell, NM, but was eventually trained by the great N.C. Wyeth Hurd in Chadds Forth, PA.  

He achieved the best expression of his personal vision in the tempera paintings of the place he loved best-the small village of San Patricio, New Mexico, fifty miles west of Roswell, where he built Sentinel Ranch in the 1930s. In December 1923, in Pennsylvania, Hurd became acquainted with N. C. Wyeth, an illustrator of children's classics. He persuaded Wyeth to accept him as a pupil in the spring of 1924. He painted alongside Andrew Wyeth and his sister, Henriette, herself an excellent painter. John Gaw Meem and Ruth McCormick hired him to paint a massive wall mural under the portal of the Cultural Center. The mural depicts a scene of San Ysidro, the patron saint of agriculture.

Paul Valentine Lantz (1908 - 2000) 
The entire women's changing room in the Cultural Center was painted by Paul Lantz, a successful Santa Fe illustrator and a painter of landscapes and portraits. His work can also be seen in the public spaces at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe.

Larry Miller 
The five panels painted over the ballroom doors and windows at La Quinta were added in 1951, more than a decade after all the other artists completed their work. Painted in a WPA style, Miller portrays the pastoral history of Los Poblanos with panels of shepherding, farming, and the original barn and dairy buildings. They are a perfect compliment to Peter Hurd's mural only a few feet away.

Robert Woodman 
The decorative tin light fixtures illuminating the buildings of Los Poblanos are examples of tinsmith Robert Woodman's finest work. Woodman was part of the Spanish Pueblo Revival movement during the WPA period, which sought to perpetuate New Mexico's unique craft of Hispanic religious decorative tinwork. He frequently collaborated with John Gaw Meem in designing fixtures for some of New Mexico's most famous buildings, including Zimmerman Library at UNM and the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe.