Oscar E. Berninghaus (New Mexico, 1874-1952), Mexican marketplace, watercolor

sight: 8 x 10 in., frame: 15 x 17 in.

Provenance: A Castle Hills, Texas collection

Oscar Berninghaus is an important artist of the American West, his canvases depicting the lands and people of New Mexico, particularly the Taos Valley. Native Americans and pioneer settlers as well as horses often feature in Berninghaus works, set in vast vistas of cactus, sagebrush, and prairie grasses. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Berninghaus grew up around a family lithography business which stimulated in him an early interest in art. After attending the St. Louis School of Fine Arts he was commissioned to produce promotional sketches of the Colorado and New Mexico landscapes. The landscapes of the West entranced Berninghaus and thus began a long tradition of spending his winters at home in St. Louis working on commercial illustration art, and traveling to the Taos Valley in the summers to pursue his fine art career there. In 1915, he became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, and began to win prestigious awards for his Taos Indian-based fine art. He also was commissioned to produce large murals for a number of notable civic buildings in St. Louis and elsewhere, and enjoyed a long association with the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company and the Busch family. Today, his work can be find in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, and the St. Louis Art Museum. His work has become highly desirable when it comes up for sale, with a new world record set in 2023 at auction of $1,562,000.

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