Taos Real Estate

TAOS HISTORIC MUSEUMS
La Hacienda de los Martinez
E.L. Blumenschein Home & Museum

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

2 May 2008

CONTACT:
Morris Witten, Executive Director
575-758-0505      director@taoshistoricmuseums.org

TAOS HISTORIC MUSEUMS SUMMER HOURS

Taos - The Taos Historic Museums begin summer hours on May 1. La Hacienda
de los Martinez and the E.L. Blumenschein Home and Museum will be open
Tuesday through Saturday 10 am to 4 pm and from noon until 4 pm on Sunday.
The museums are closed on Monday.

The Martinez Hacienda is on Highway 240 (Ranchitos Road), 2 miles south of
Taos Plaza. The phone number is 757-758-1000.

The Hacienda de los Martinez is one of the few late Spanish Colonial
period "Great Houses" remaining in the American Southwest. Built in 1804
this fortress-like building with massive adobe walls became an important
trade center for the northern boundary of the Spanish Empire. The Hacienda
was the final terminus for the Camino Real which connected northern New
Mexico to Mexico City. The Hacienda also was the headquarters for an
extensive ranching and farming operation. Today the Hacienda's twenty-one
rooms surrounding two courtyards provide the visitor with a rare glimpse
of the rugged frontier life and times of the early 1800s.

The Hacienda Heritage Quilters and Weavers work is on exhibit year round.
On Fridays the Hacienda Heritage Quilters demonstrate in the chapel in the
front placita, and on Wednesdays guests can watch the Hacienda weavers in
the weaving room in the back placita. Additional demonstrations of
traditional crafts occur throughout the summer.

The Blumenschein Home & Museum is located at 222 Ledoux Street one block
South of Taos Plaza. The phone number is 758-0505.

In the early autumn of 1898 young American artists Ernest L. Blumenschein
and Bert G. Phillips were on a sketching trip from Denver to northern
Mexico when the wheel of their surrey broke on a mountainous road just
north of Taos. The ensuing delay gave them time to become captivated by
the spectacular landscape and remarkable cultures of the Taos Valley.
Phillips remained in Taos from that time forward. Blumenschein came back
nearly every summer until 1919, when he, his artist wife Mary Greene
Blumenschein, and daughter Helen purchased a 1797 structure from Herbert
"Buck" Dunton for their permanent home.

In 1915 Blumenschein, Phillips, Dunton, Oscar Berninghaus, E.I. Couse, and
Joseph Henry Sharpe formed the famous Taos Society of Artists. The society
was organized to promote the splendor of Taos and the art of the American
West to ever greater audiences.

The Blumenschein Home and Museum is maintained much as it was when the
artist and his family were alive. The home is filled with a superb
collection of the Blumenschein family's art, a representative sampling of
works by other famous Taos artists, fine European and Spanish Colonial
style antiques, and the family's lifetime of personal possessions. The
home beautifully illustrates the lifestyle of Taos artists in the first
half of the twentieth century.

Through May of 2009 a special exhibit of small drawings by Blumenschein
will be on exhibit.

Admission is $8 for adults, $4 for youth under 16, and free for children
under 5. Admission is free on Sunday for Taos County residents with ID.
"SAVER CARDS" are also available that admit one person to both THM museums
for just $12.

For more information please call either of the sites or visit our website
www.taoshistoricmuseums.org.

###

.jpegs of the museums are available. Please email or phone for information.

222 Ledoux Street, Taos, New Mexico 87571
575-758-0505
www.taoshistoricmuseums.org

--
Morris Witten
Executive Director
Taos Historic Museums
(la Hacienda de los Martinez ~ E.L. Blumenschein Home and Museum ~
Southwest Research Center of NM)

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