Carl von Hassler (1887 - 1969) was the German who adopted America, fell in love with the Southwest, and became the "Dean of the Albuquerque Art Colony." For 47 years, Carl lived in Albuquerque and studied and painted the landscape and Indian people of the Southwest. It can be argued that even more than the famed Taos Society of Artists, Hassler captured the beauty and authenticity of the area and the people at the time he painted them.
It was not a life one would have predicted for this German citizen. He was born on a train in Bremen, Germany, to a Dutch mother and a French father. His father was a successful businessman, and Hassler had a privileged lifestyle as a young man. He wanted to be an artist, but following his father's direction, he enrolled in the German Naval Academy at 14.
The Academy had classes in art, and Hassler took advantage of them. At 16, he had an experience that was to shape his life. His father helped bring Buffalo Bill's Wild West show to his hometown of Bremen. The adventure and excitement of the troupe instilled the desire to go to America. He finished his naval service, completed a six-year course of study at the Dusseldorf Art Academy, and then set sail for the United States.
Landing in New York, he joined up with artists known as the Ashcan Group. The group believed in the worthiness of immigrant and working-class life as artistic subject matter and art that depicted the real rather than an elitist ideal.
In 1917, as WWI approached, many group members were drawn to move to Taos, NM. Hassler made a different choice. He joined the United States Army to fight against his former homeland. In Germany, his brother also enlisted, but in the German army. Hassler's mother disowned him when his brother was killed. In 1922, when he finished his service, Hassler headed west, but instead of moving to Taos, he decided on Albuquerque.
He was a naturalist and was, above all, curious about the people and the land. He spent time at Navajo trading posts and the Pueblo villages. He became fluent in Navajo and could also converse with other tribes. Hassler was fascinated with the people and the Southwest. He took a scholarly approach, studying the vegetation and the people. His peers credited him with a thirst for knowledge and believed you couldn't paint something you didn't understand.
His first studio in Albuquerque was in the building that now houses La Placita Restaurant in Old Town. In the studio, he created a new painting technique that required him to bake his paintings at up to 600 degrees, giving them an almost ceramic finish with colors that won't fade. He also developed what he called "an atomic substance" to paint on that would withstand the heat. Amazingly, his techniques died with him as he never shared his secrets.
He was well-known in Albuquerque for his murals. The Kimo Theater on Central Avenue had several, and all but one has been restored. The missing one was the Seven Cities of Cibola, which was removed to create a window for a radio station that had moved onto the second floor of the building. He did a large mural in the old Albuquerque Airport, which is still there, and one in the Mineshaft Tavern in Madrid, NM. He was also in demand to paint murals in the homes of people who lived in the "upper end" of Albuquerque by the country club.
He taught private lessons, and many of his students, including Ben Turner and Betty Sabo, went on to great careers as artists.
His absolute joy was painting what he saw. As a biographer said, he believed, "It is impossible to elaborate on nature with success."
Most of Hassler's paintings were landscapes, but some of his most appreciated are the portraits of Native people. The painting we are sharing today is of a Taos man. Unlike many of his contemporaries who painted Pueblo people, he did not try to place them back into an earlier time. He painted what he saw.
This painting, TaosIndian, came from an Albuquerque collection and was probably painted in the 1930s. The original price on the back of the painting was $75!
Hassler died in 1969 after 47 years of depicting the people and the country that he loved.
