New Mexico Art Tells its History

Santa Fe Hills - Kroll

Santa Fe Hills, 1917
Leon Kroll (American, 1884 - 1947)
oil on canvas, 34 x 40 1/4 in. (86.4 x 102.2 cm)
Gift of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, 1972
2266.23P

Leon Kroll was born in New York City where he spent many hours as a young man looking at the paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He earned his tuition for the Art Students League by sweeping floors and washing paintbrushes, and was there encouraged by Winslow Homer to pursue a career in painting. After additional studies in Paris, Kroll returned to New York in 1910, earning critical and popular success. He became associated with a circle of contemporary artists and participated with them in the 1913 Armory Show, a pivotal exhibition introducing both European and American 'modern' art, to the American public, and stimulating artists to revise their attitudes to art and the tradition of representational painting.

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