Top of Sandia, 1953
Louie Ewing (American, 1908 - 1983)
oil on canvas panel, 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Museum purchase, 40th Annual Exhibition, 1953
40.23P
Louie Ewing was born in Pocatello, Idaho. In 1933 he moved to California and studied art in a junior college, following his teacher to Santa Fe in 1935.They both taught at the newly organized Eidolon Art School until it closed after one year. Ewing married Marrie Breneiser, his teacher's daughter, in 1935, and the couple decided to stay on in Santa Fe. He joined the WPA's Federal Art Project working under artist Russell Vernon Hunter who encouraged Ewing to master the process of silk screening and spread the technique in the Southwest. Heading the WPA printmaking workshop in Santa Fe, Ewing set up a silk screening shop and silk screening became a major artistic expression in the Southwest. In the late 1940s Ewing taught at the Indian School in Santa Fe and trained a number of Native Americans, who went on to open their own successful silk screen studios. Ewing is also known for his many landscape paintings of New Mexico.