String The Bow, n.d.
E. Martin Hennings (American, 1886 - 1956)
etching, 15 x 16 1/2 in. (38.1 x 41.9 cm)
Gift of Ira and Virginia Jackson, 1997
1997.31.1
Ernest Martin Hennings was born in Pennsgrove, New Jersey to German immigrant parents. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago before enrolling in the Munich Academy in 1914. With the onset of WW I, Hennings returned to Chicago where he was an instructor at the Art Institute. It was on a sponsored trip to the Southwest that he first discovered Taos where he eventually made a permanent move in 1924. His experiences in Taos strongly affected his style, as he left the somber palette of the Munich artists and turned instead to a more colorful and precise way of painting featuring riders and Indians in the birch forests of New Mexico. Hennings joined the Taos Society of Artists that helped him gain both recognition and acceptance in the art world. His final project was a commission from the Santa Fe Railway for a series of paintings to be hung on the Navajo Reservation.