40th Wedding Anniversary, n.d.
Will Shuster (1893–1969)
oil on board
Gift of Catherine Rayne, 1978.
Will Shuster came to Santa Fe in 1920 to recover from tuberculosis. He met John Sloan there and they good friends. Shuster started the Cinco Pintores group to break away from academic, realist painting, but his paintings never became abstract. Shuster created murals at the Museum of Fine Arts during the Depression. He felt that his WPA paintings were important for stimulating public interest in art. Shuster made small etchings of famous local scenes to sell cheaply to tourists. His most notorious artwork was creation of Zozobra with artist Gustave Bauman.