Art and Heartbreak in Taos, NM
By Chadd Scott on
There are heartbreaks.
Teenage heartbreaks. First love heartbreaks.
The kind of heartbreaks everyone should experience as essential to the human condition. The kind you get over.
And then there are heartbreaks.
Destroyers. Those that obliterate the soul. The kind you don’t always get over.
I know both.
On a recent visit to Taos, NM, I learned about a pair of the latter.
Nicolai Fechin
Nicolai Fechin (1881–1955) immigrated to the United States from Russia with his wife, Alexandra, and their daughter, Eya, in 1923. Like most eastern Europeans, their first stop was New York City. Fechin had a successful career as an artist and art teacher in his homeland, and quickly established himself as one of the city’s top portraitists working out of a studio in Grand Central Station.
The climate did him no favors, however. He contracted tuberculosis, a condition exacerbated by pre-existing respiratory ailments.
A fellow artist, John Young-Huner, told Fechin about Taos and its combination of a dry, sunny climate with a well-established arts colony. In 1926, on the invitation of Mable Dodge Luhan – famed Taos patron of the arts – the Fechin’s headed west for the summer. The artist was immediately taken, and the family set up residence there the following year.
Alongside his art practice, Fechin set to work constructing a studio and apartment on the seven acres of land he purchased before moving on to a full renovation and expansion of the small, two-story house that previously existed on the property. When visiting the Taos Art Museum at Fechin House today, the gift shop resides in the studio/apartment – the studio remaining much the same as it did when Fechin worked there – with the main house hosting the museum where many of his masterpieces hang.
Nicolai Fechin painting of his studio on view in his studio at Fechin House in Taos. Photo Credit: Chadd Scott
Fechin was a gifted woodworker, the practice deeply rooted Russian heritage. From childhood, he worked in his father’s studio, learning carving, construction, carpentry, and gilding. He’d later take courses in architecture. He may have been as good a woodworker as he was a painter.
Touring the Fechin House reveals an astonishing level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, decorative and architectural intrigue, and cleverness on behalf of the maker. Admire the 51 unique doors. Look for carved pinecones – Fechin’s shorthand for Taos – and sunflowers – his shorthand for Russia.
The home was one of the first in Taos with electricity and indoor plumbing.
He made all the furniture, too. He favored sugar pine from the Pacific Northwest; it didn’t have any knots.
He designed the ironwork.
The amount of time Fechin must have spent thinking about the home, planning the work, and undertaking the construction can only be imagined.
Sadly, Fechin lived there just six years. Alexandra divorced him in 1933.
He was devastated.
Remaining in Taos, close to Alexandra, proved too difficult. Despite his great passion for the area and house, it was too painful to stay. He was wrecked. The only prospect worse than leaving, staying.
He and Eya first returned to New York, then set off for California, where he lived and worked the rest of his life. He returned to Taos during summers for a while, attempting to win Alexandra back, without success.
He never appeared to get over the loss.
Nicolai Fechin, 'Alexandra on the Volga,' 1912. Oil on canvas. Photo Credit: Chadd Scott
Why Alexandra sought an end to the relationship is anyone’s guess. It could be presumed Fechin wasn’t the most attentive of husbands, what with all the time he spent working on his painting and the house. Alexandra was a writer, perhaps she wanted the independence of single life.
Whatever the case, she stayed in the home until 1946 before finding the upkeep too great and retreating to the studio. The Fechin house was sealed up for more than three decades when Eya took up the work of restoring it in 1977. It opened as the Taos Art Museum in 2003.
Millicent Rogers
Millicent Rogers (1902-1953) was the picture of beauty, style, and grace. Hollywood starlet good looks. Thin, blonde, graceful. Textbook, drop-dead, stunning. She dressed in couture. Her “look” inspired Ralph Lauren’s design aesthetic.
Rich, too. Dirty, rotten, stinking, filthy rich. Millicent Rogers’ grandfather, H.H. Rogers, co-founded the Standard Oil Trust with John D. Rockefeller.
The combination proved catnip for the paparazzi. Her “coming out” gala hosted at the Ritz-Carlton in New York was covered by the New York Times. Two thousand invitations were sent. Rogers was a socialite celebrity.
Her family and personal life also contained no small amount of scandal and drama, further inciting the press.
She married and divorced three men in rapid succession in her 20s and early 30s, on top of numerous rumored engagements. She dated Edward, Prince of Wales – multiple royals from the continent – James Bond author Ian Flemming, and then Clark Gable. Yes, that Clark Gable.
The heartbreak from that relationship ending brought her to Taos in 1947. She was fleeing. Fleeing society. Fleeing the media. Fleeing the attention and presumably embarrassment of the failed relationship with the movie star.
Rogers had lived her life in high style on 5th Avenue and Park Avenue, feted across the capitals of Europe, making the scene in Hollywood. Taos was about as far from all of that as someone could possibly get.
And she thrived there.
Rogers became deeply interested in Native American and Spanish colonial art. She formed a friendship with San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez. Yes, that Maria Martinez.
Rogers was an artist herself. Self-taught. Jewelry design and drawings.
Dorothy Brett, 'Millicent Rogers,' 1950. Oil on canvas. Photo Credit: Chadd Scott
Highlights of her collections, along with those of her son Paul Peralta-Ramos, form the backbone of the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos. An under-heralded gem.
Rogers’ life wasn’t all evening gowns and champagne. During the runup to World War II from her time in Europe, she helped Jews escape the Nazis. She had a role in helping return sacred Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo.
Unlike Fechin, Rogers did recover from her shattered heart. On New Year’s Day 1953, just prior to her death, Rogers wrote a beautiful, soulful letter from Taos to her son Paul detailing her love for Taos and connection to it. Text of the letter is on display in the museum. She asked to be buried there, and was.
Rogers fought ill health all her life. She knew her days were numbered – then, and always – perhaps that’s why she lived life with such vigor, reckless at times.
She only made it to 50.
In whatever time you have, you need to make it to Taos, for Fechin, for Rogers, for art, and for heartbreak.
