1 Appreciate Luchita’s lineage.
Channeling Luchita: A Community Response to the Life and Work of Luchita Hurtado, which opens Friday at Taos’s Millicent Rogers Museum, is a unique exhibition for a couple reasons. First, its inception came from Luchita Hurtado: Earth & Sky Interjected, an exhibition on view at the Harwood Art Museum through February 23. It’s not often we see two museum shows at the same time with the same subject, much less one that’s inspired by another. Second, the collaborative effort involves three artistic bodies: the Taos Abstract Artist Collective, the Millicent Rogers Museum, and the Harwood Museum of Art.
“It has been wonderful to have all of us working together and in conversation,” says Claire Motsinger, curator of community and collections at the Millicent Rogers Museum. “We are intending to do some collaborative programming with Harwood Museum. The TAAC is in a unique position to be very mobile and responsive, and have their connections and relationships interlinked in the arts community.”
Born in Venezuela in 1920, Luchita Hurtado spent more than 80 years studying transcendence and mysticism, developing unique techniques, and creating works infused with her life experience. Before her death in 2020, she built a second home and spent part of her life in Arroyo Seco.
“It was a wonderful experience to get to know Luchita and her work,” Motsinger says. “Often it’s said about Luchita that a lot of the world saw her as just a wife and a mother. But she was devoted not only to her practice without recognition, but she was also devoted to her family. She would paint in the middle of the night. A lot of artists can relate to that, living your life and your day job, and then living your second artist life at night when you create work.”
After acquainting themselves with Hurtado’s life and work, the co-curatorial team reached out to local artists they felt aligned with her practices. “We each nominated two or three artists who we felt had an artistic kinship with Luchita,” says Montsinger. “We came together and discussed what we saw as core themes, colors, and imagery that were floating to the top for us. We alighted on certain artists that we felt were related or linked to the way Luchita worked and lived her life.”
Eventually they decided on 40 works by 10 artists, including Josh Tafoya, Olive Tyrrell, Rick Romancito, and Maye Torres, to be featured in the exhibition which runs through February 2. An opening reception will be held Friday, November 15, from 5:30–7:30 p.m.
