Emil James Bisttram | Biography | Hollis Taggart Galleries

Emil James Bisttram (1895-1976)

Modernist painter Emil J. Bisttram is especially renowned for his geometric abstract paintings and his images of New Mexico. Although initially a realist painter, after settling in Taos in early 1930s he began working in both realist and geometric styles. Bisttram frequently drew inspiration from the people, customs, forms, and colors of New Mexico as well as the artistic philosophies of Wassily Kandinksy. Like Kandinksy, he believed paintings transcended the mundane and were infused with spirituality. He became celebrated for his exquisite, colorful, geometric images.

Born in Hungary in 1895, Bisttram immigrated to America with his family when he was eleven. He grew up in the crowded tenements of New York City’s Lower East Side. At an early age he showed a talent for drawing and painting and decided to pursue a career in the arts. He opened the first freelance advertising agency in the United States in New York in 1916. While running this commercial enterprise during the day he took art classes at night under Leon Kroll, Howard Giles, and Jay Hambridge at the Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. Beginning in 1920 he was appointed assistant instructor under Giles at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. He also taught at the Parsons School of Design and at Nicholas Roerich’s Master Institute of the United States. The Master Institute offered a program that included the study of theosophy, occult philosophies, and the unity of the arts.

In his approach to painting Bisttram was heavily influenced by contemporary theories of art. His teacher Hambridge’s theory of Dynamic Symmetry was particularly appealing to him. This system, based in part on the proportional relationships of the Golden Section and the logarithmic spiral, was one by which the artist could create a perfectly balanced, harmonious, and ideal composition. Bisttram was also influenced by Nicholas Roerich’s mystical ideologies. Roerich was “a multifaceted genius who invested his painting and writing with mystical philosophy and an arcane wisdom. His influence on Bisttram’s thought and art was penetrating and permanent. From Roerich, Bisttram developed the belief that all arts are essentially one and have the power to transform people’s lives."1 In addition, Bisttram was an ardent appreciator of Wassily Kandinsky’s writings, especially his The Art of Spiritual Harmony. For Bisttram painting was a spiritual journey, as well as an intellectual and physical activity.

In 1930 Bisttram made his first trip to Taos, New Mexico. Like many modernists, most famously Georgia O’Keeffe, one of his motives for going West was to “seek a simple life away from the pressures of the big city."2 The large, open spaces of the American Southwest fascinated him, but also overwhelmed him. He wrote, “whenever I tried to paint what was before me I was frustrated by the grandeur of the scenery and the limitless space. Above all was that strange almost mystic quality of light."2 While Bisttram left New Mexico after only three months in 1930, he would soon return for a much longer stay.

In 1931, Bisttram received a Guggenheim grant to travel to Mexico City to study art. He was an apprentice under Diego Rivera who taught him the fresco technique of mural painting. After several months, Bisttram determined that he had learned enough and returned to the United States. The lessons in mural painting that he gleaned from Rivera would prove most useful for future commissions.

When Bisttram left Mexico, he joined his wife in New Mexico, where he would live for the remainder of his life. Shortly after his arrival, Bisttram opened the first commercial art gallery in the city, the Heptagon Gallery. He also founded the Taos School of Art, later renamed the Bisttram School of Fine Art. In addition, he became secretary of the Taos Artists Association. Bisttram quickly became fascinated with the Native American art and culture of the area and created paintings that reflected this interest. He made pictures of Hopi snake dancers, portrayed Native American and Mexican American women and children, and was drawn to the distinctive architecture of the region as a subject for his work. Almost all of these paintings are representational, though some are highly stylized. While Bisttram continued to work in a realistic vein, beginning in the late 1930s he experimented more frequently with abstract art.

In the depths of the Great Depression all artists had difficulty finding work and Bisttram, along with thousands of others, participated in some of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs for the arts including the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP). In 1934 Bisttram was chosen to paint several murals for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He received commissions for works at the County Courthouse in Taos, New Mexico, the Courthouse in Roswell, New Mexico, and at the Justice Department Building in Washington, DC. His training under Rivera in Mexico was indispensable in helping him conceive and complete these murals.

Whereas, Rivera influenced his mural work, the Native American art of New Mexico profoundly affected Bisttram and “led him to abstraction."4 He continued to be influenced by the Dynamic Symmetry principles of Hambridge’s teachings and carefully controlled the division of space in his canvases. Yet he also incorporated into his approach the art ideas from Roerich, Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and the principles of Theosophy. He strove to portray universal and spiritual themes in his paintings and his forms and colors were often meant to be suggestive of sounds and symphonic rhythms. He sought to find “geometric analogies for metaphysical ideas."5According to Walt Wiggins, Bisttram’s biographer, the artist found in the formal elements of art, i.e., in form and design, the universal elements that create all great art.

In 1938 Emil Bisttram helped form the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) in Taos. Other artists included Raymond Jonson, Lauren Harris, Stuart Walker, Robert Gribboek, Bill Lumpkins, Horace Pierce, Florence Miller, and Agnes Pelton. Though short-lived, the group basically disbanded in 1941, the TPG was a vital force in maintaining the abstract movement in America at a time when Regionalism and Realism predominated the American art scene. The main goal of this loose affiliation was “to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual. The work does not concern itself with political, economic or other social problems."6 While each individual artist adhered to their own style and method, in general, they strove to create forms that were cosmic, universal, and timeless. Emil Bisttram, in particular, wished to create nonobjective art that enhanced the spiritual level of society. He felt that artists should “stimulate deeper ideas and intuitions and thereby make a significant contribution to the development of our culture and the advance of civilization.”

Emil J. Bisttram was an extremely influential figure in American art, especially in the American Southwest. Through his numerous schools he spread his belief in the importance of art within society and deeply affected hundreds of budding artists. He died in his beloved Taos in 1976.

Collections: Arizona State University of Art, Tempe, AZ; Denver Art Museum; Sangre De Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo, CO; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Eiteljorg Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, IN; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; Jonson Gallery of University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM; The Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM; Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX; Dallas Museum of Art; Stark Museum of Art, Orange, TX; Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

1. M.C.N., “Review of The Transcendental Art of Emil Bisttram by Walk Wiggins,” American Artist 53 (August 1989):82-3.
2. Van Deren Coke, Taos and Santa Fe: The Artist’s Environment, 1882-1942 (Albuquerque, NM and Fort Worth, TX: The University of New Mexico Press and the Amon Carter, 1963):90.
3. M.C.N., 83.
4. Jules Langsner, “Art News from: Los Angeles,” Art News 48 (January 1950):53.
5. Original Manifesto, Transcendental Painting Group.
6. Emil Bisttram, “The New Vision in Art,” Tomorrow 1 (September 1941):37.