Taos Adobe Wall and the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, by J W Shank

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A study in neutrals, the essence of timeless Taos comes together in this picture. The backdrop of the Sangre de … Read more A study in neutrals, the essence of timeless Taos comes together in this picture. The backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and particularly notice the brilliant light on the structure, a magnet to painters like Georgia O’ Keeffe. Taos Village sits high up at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level. At that altitude, there’s less atmosphere to filter the sun, resulting even on an overcast day in a clarity like this.
The renowned thick-walled adobe architecture of Taos Pueblo, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and seen at the lower left edge, is distilled here into one small section, a stepped adobe wall very much like the entry to the San Geromino church, now in its fourth incarnation since 1617.
Lastly, the crucifix at the wall’s center might refer to Coronado’s 1541 exploratory expedition, followed by the Spanish missionary’s cultural overlay of the indigenous Pueblo peoples, the originators of those solid adobe walls, whose ancestors had settled the area since 1,100 CE.
The work is signed lower right as J.W. Shank and dated in the artist’s hand as ’87, the only attribution we can affirm about this specific work. But what’s especially interesting is that there’s a world-renowned art conservator J. Will Shank who specializes in 20th-century outdoor murals and modern and contemporary art.
Born in 1951 in York, Pennsylvania, USA, Shank pursued his training as an art historian and conservator at Villa Schifanoia in Florence and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York as well as at the Harvard University Art Museums. According to The Institute, “Shank was a painter and chose to specialize in the conservation of easel paintings during his studies there.” Throughout the 1990s, he served as the head of conservation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize in 2005 for Conservation/Historic Preservation, Shank has worked on projects such as the conservation of large outdoor murals by Keith Haring. He is the co-founder of Rescue Public Murals, with his base of operations now in Barcelona, Spain.
Although there is no record of Will Shank’s travel to the area, if this is one and the same artist, Shank would have been in his mid 30s when in Taos completing this work. Perhaps drawn by the light.

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