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Lot Essay
After training at the Art Institute of Chicago for several years, Ernest Martin Hennings enrolled in classes at the Royal Academy in Munich. The outbreak of World War I called Hennings back to Chicago in 1917, where he became acquainted with several prominent businessmen who supported his first trip to New Mexico that year. By 1927, Hennings moved to Taos where he lived until the end of his life.
The spectacular landscape and lifestyle of the Southwest inspired Hennings work for over thirty years. "The paintings of E. Martin Hennings are glowing tapestries that celebrate the pageantry and beauty of the people and landscape of northern New Mexico. In them the land itself--the canyons, mountains, streams, and forests--suggests the color and romance of a Renaissance weaving. Against this richly hued background, the Indian people of Taos Pueblo, the Spanish-American people of the neighboring mountain villages, and the Anglos living and working in New Mexico are the protagonists of a historic tableau. Hennings looked upon the rivers, forests, and high desert of Taos and the people of the Pueblo and villages as an endless source of artistic inspiration, a treasury of visual pleasures." (P.J. Broder, Taos: A Painter's Dream, Boston, Massachusetts, 1980, p. 253)
The unique and vibrant seasonal colors of Taos inspired him as well. He wrote: "'Landscape plays so important a part of my work, and subjects of sage, mountain and sky. Nothing thrills me more, when in the fall, the aspen and cottonwoods are in color and with the sunlight playing across them--all the poetry and drama, all the moods and changes of nature are there to inspire one to greater accomplishment from year to year.'" (Taos: A Painter's Dream, p. 253) As evident in Midsummer Aspen, his "most successful canvases are those in which he interwove the threads of landscape and figure forms. His special talent lay in this ability to integrate human figures and natural forms into a single aesthetic creation. Silhouettes of standing and seated figures, tree trunks, branches, foliage, sage, and underbrush, adobe buildings, woodland paths, and the river's edge--all are interdependent forms." (Taos: A Painter's Dream, pp. 253-6)
As an artist, Hennings was meticulous and precise. As a carefully refined work on canvas, Hennings put considerable effort into Midsummer Aspen. "His method of working on a painting that included both landscape and figures was to paint the background first. He worked outdoors, returning to his studio only to complete the final details. He then went back outdoors and made a series of small pencil sketches in which he placed the figures at different positions against the landscape. From these he selected his most successful compositions for his finished canvas." (Taos: A Painter's Dream, p. 260)
The spectacular landscape and lifestyle of the Southwest inspired Hennings work for over thirty years. "The paintings of E. Martin Hennings are glowing tapestries that celebrate the pageantry and beauty of the people and landscape of northern New Mexico. In them the land itself--the canyons, mountains, streams, and forests--suggests the color and romance of a Renaissance weaving. Against this richly hued background, the Indian people of Taos Pueblo, the Spanish-American people of the neighboring mountain villages, and the Anglos living and working in New Mexico are the protagonists of a historic tableau. Hennings looked upon the rivers, forests, and high desert of Taos and the people of the Pueblo and villages as an endless source of artistic inspiration, a treasury of visual pleasures." (P.J. Broder, Taos: A Painter's Dream, Boston, Massachusetts, 1980, p. 253)
The unique and vibrant seasonal colors of Taos inspired him as well. He wrote: "'Landscape plays so important a part of my work, and subjects of sage, mountain and sky. Nothing thrills me more, when in the fall, the aspen and cottonwoods are in color and with the sunlight playing across them--all the poetry and drama, all the moods and changes of nature are there to inspire one to greater accomplishment from year to year.'" (Taos: A Painter's Dream, p. 253) As evident in Midsummer Aspen, his "most successful canvases are those in which he interwove the threads of landscape and figure forms. His special talent lay in this ability to integrate human figures and natural forms into a single aesthetic creation. Silhouettes of standing and seated figures, tree trunks, branches, foliage, sage, and underbrush, adobe buildings, woodland paths, and the river's edge--all are interdependent forms." (Taos: A Painter's Dream, pp. 253-6)
As an artist, Hennings was meticulous and precise. As a carefully refined work on canvas, Hennings put considerable effort into Midsummer Aspen. "His method of working on a painting that included both landscape and figures was to paint the background first. He worked outdoors, returning to his studio only to complete the final details. He then went back outdoors and made a series of small pencil sketches in which he placed the figures at different positions against the landscape. From these he selected his most successful compositions for his finished canvas." (Taos: A Painter's Dream, p. 260)