The quiet adobe museum entrance displaying a retro WWII-era poster prepares no one for the ultra-modern abstraction extravaganza inside the Harwood.
Pursuit of Happiness: GI Bill in Taos, on view through May 31, 2026, shows and explains how an influx of rule-breaking painters from both coasts returned from the War, enrolled in contemporary art classes, and created the mid-century phenomenon that art historians classify as Taos Modern. Take a virtual visit in our Flickr album.
The exhibition tells the story of young people who first applied their talents to defend America in Europe, the Pacific, and the home front, and then chose to channel their energies and experiences through color and paint on large canvases to give life to postwar Abstract Expressionism, big-field flat color painting, and innovative materials.
The exhibition captures both the energy and optimism of the moment and shines a light on the mentors, teachers, and educational institutions that gave these vets a platform to experiment as social realism’s dominance in the art scene was giving way to new expressions – inner spiritualism, bold strokes, and white canvases with wide open spaces.
Mid-century modern dominates the exhibition, but there are a few references to artists’ wartime experiences – dramatic ink drawings from Oli Shivonen’s European war journals and Janet Lippencott’s expressive canvas that puts the viewer amid the carnage in London from one of Germany’s final bombing raids – something she experienced as a WAC serving on Eisenhower’s staff.
The exhibition frames the work by highlighting the seasonal and year-round schools that welcomed students under the GI Bill of 1944, which provided WWII vets with benefits for education, mortages, and employment. A remarkably high percentage of veterans took advantage of this transformative legislation that built America’s middle class. To learn more, download the gallery guide here.
The earliest modern art program in Taos was the University of New Mexico Summer Field School, which began in 1929. Students worked and slept on the grounds of today’s Harwood itself. By the time that GI Bill students attended, property owner and philanthropist Elizabeth Lucy Harwood gifted her former residence – now the Harwood Museum – to UNM. The exhibition showcases work by former UNM summer students R.C. Ellis and Malcolm Brown.
Although she wasn’t on the GI Bill, the Harwood has an entire room full of the UNM program’s most acclaimed attendee, Ms. Agnes Martin, who shared studio space alongside returning war vets in 1947.
Transcendentalist artist Emil Bisttram also accepted GI Bill students into his seasonal fine arts program, which emphasized the principles of Kandinsky and European spiritual abstractionists. Although Taos was his home, Bisttram offered summer and winter fine arts sessions were in Los Angeles and Phoenix, where he taught. Janet Lippincott, who became a lifelong Taos resident, and Cliff Harmon, who also trained with Albers at Black Mountain College, are featured.
The cross-pollination of styles, personalities, spiritual influences, and teaching philosophies in Taos was intense and rewarding in those post-war years. Two upstart abstractionists – Bea Mandelman and Louis Ribak – arrived and began the Taos Valley Art School in 1947, which welcomed 20 students per semester.
A significant number of works are by Leger-trained Mandelman and social-realist-turned abstractionist Ribak, and their former GI Bill students – Louis Catusco, Ted Egri, Leo Garel, Herman Rednick, and Eve Mirabal (the Taos Pueblo artist credited as the first female Native cartoonist in America).
Clyfford Still-trained painters also made their way to Taos from the California School of Fine Arts, the legendary modern-art training ground in San Francisco. The Harwood’s all-white back gallery features spectacular works by Clay Spohn, Lawrence Calcagno, and Ed Corbett. When the pay was too low at CSFA, even Richard Diebenkorn enrolled in UNM to use his more generous GI Bill benefits.
The back corner features work by two former Black Mountain College. Several are by Oli Shivonen, who served in the corps of artists and sound engineers in the “Ghost Army” that created battlefield deceptions to deceive Axis troops. Note the flat shapes and bold colors, reminiscent of another Ghost Army vet, Ellsworth Kelly.
A small multiple by John Chamberlain also stands here – a tribute to the inspiration that Chamberlain drew from the new methods, material, and iridescent magic reflected in work by another SoCal-to-Taos transplant, Larry Bell.
For more stories, background, and innovations by GI Bill beneficiaries across the US art world, listen to this lecture by the curator of this amazing show, MaLin Wilson-Powell:
And in a living tribute to all of the Taos veterans, the Harwood created a community space for temporary exhibition of photos, memories, and tributes right inside this remarkable exhibition that honors the men and women of art and service.
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