Walter Ufer

(1876-1936)

The Water Women 30 x 30 in. framed 41 x 41 in.

Footnotes

Provenance
Howard C. Alley and John E.D. Trask, New York, New York.
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Private collection, 1992.
Sotheby's, New York, May 27, 1999, lot 33.
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1999.

Exhibited
New York, Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, no date.
Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, no date.

Walter Ufer was a notable draftsman and colorist celebrated for his honest depictions of the American West, in particular the Native Americans of the Southwest. He was born near Cologne, Germany and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. During his formative years, Ufer apprenticed as a printer and engraver. He was inspired to become a painter at the age of seventeen after visiting the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Thereafter he traveled to Germany to study academic realism, training in Hamburg and the Royal Academy in Dresden. Returning stateside in 1900, Ufer worked as an illustrator, printer, portraitist, and art instructor in Chicago, but within a year relocated to Munich in 1911 to further his artistic endeavors. In 1914, Ufer once again found himself in Chicago attracting notice from the city's mayor, Carter Harrison, for his artistic talents. Ufer was one of three Chicago-based artists (along with Victor Higgins and Ernest Martin Hennings) who were sponsored by the Mayor to travel to the American Southwest and paint its natural beauty.

Taos completely captured the artist's imagination and by 1917, Ufer settled there and became an elected member of the Taos Society of Artists. Harrison encouraged Ufer to paint the Southwest candidly, espousing that "The man who makes himself the Millet of the Indian, who paints him just as he is, as he lives, will strike the lasting note." Historically, European-trained artists portrayed Native Americans in a purely romanticized light, further perpetuating the myth of the noble savage. Ufer broke with tradition, depicting Southwest Native Americans engaged in daily activities. In 1928, Ufer wrote, "I paint the Indian as he is. In the garden digging – In the field working – Riding amongst the sage – Meeting his woman in the desert – Angling for trout – In meditation." ¹ Ufer seldom painted images of ceremonial dances or ritual contexts, preferring to represent the material objects of the Pueblo Indians as extensions of their cultural traditions.

In The Water Women Ufer paints the Southwest Indian women 'as they are' utilizing several interesting compositional and painterly techniques to craft a modern painting - hiding in the guise of a traditionalist depiction of a humble task. The figures are placed in truncated positions due to the perspective chosen by Ufer. Only the main figure on the right is complete head to toe. The three figures in front of her literally walk off the picture plane. The figure wrapped in black is only visible from the chest up and the figure in purple is only seen from her elbow up in unusual cropping. Only the imagination of the viewer can complete their bodies. Ufer also employs a radical diagonal in the composition. This is highlighted by the pottery vessels which start on the ground, activating the lower left corner and proceed to the central black vessel, then up to the vessel with the elaborate geometric design in the upper right. The human figures largely follow this alignment. The figures themselves are wrapped in blocks of largely uniform color. These areas give Ufer's highly developed awareness of color and variegated brushwork effects their chance to depict the movement and folding of fabric as well as the play of light. A prime example is the block of white that dominates the center right of the painting. Not simply white, but instead a block of restrained variance of light tones. Ufer uses short staccato and long parallel strokes in contrast, super imposed on blues and creamy yellows, along with long and fluid irregular strokes on the heavy folds. His color work is equally impressive on the central black water vessel which has yellow reflections from the robe of the woman carrying it, as well as green and turquoise from the flanking figures. The sky is a dramatic cloud filled Impressionist exercise giving an immensity to the background in stark contrast to the chore depicted.

By 1926, Ufer was at the height of his fame. Following several one-man shows and prestigious prizes, he was elected an Academician by the National Academy of Design. Ufer tragically died ten years later, at the age of sixty, from peritonitis. While his popularity has waxed and waned, his importance was acknowledged immediately and his passing lamented. The great American modernist Stuart Davis wrote in tribute to Ufer in the New York Times — "We honor the memory of a man whose spirit was a living expression of that unflinching honesty and integrity which alone can assure the progress of art in America hand in hand with the other forces on which the hopes of freedom of expression and a higher culture in America depend." <sup>2

1</sup> Macbeth Gallery, Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Walter Ufer [exh. cat.], New York, 1928, p. 1.
² "Vale", The New York Times, August 16, 1936, p. 7.