Walter Ufer
American (1876-1936)
Date:
1920
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size:
Width: 50 3/16″
Height: 50 1/8″

In this sun-dappled interior scene, the double windows of a small home in Taos, New Mexico, frame a study in two cultures. Three girls from the Taos Pueblo Native community—Luzanna Lujan (1902–1979) and her two younger sisters—wear colorful shawls and alternately stare out at the viewer, rest in the window seat, and gaze out the window to the landscape beyond. The window, patterned wallpaper, and window trimmings of the artist Walter Ufer’s home are all decidedly European in style. They seem to separate the three girls from the mountains of their ancestral homeland and the Pueblo architecture visible across the town street. The large black ceramic wedding jar beside the girls, perhaps made by a member of their community, reflects the style and vast legacy of pottery production among the regional Pueblo cultures.

Gift of the Friends of Art BMA 1931.5.1

Portrait Photographer Marshall Clark’s Perspective

Transcript

In this sun-dappled interior scene, the double windows of a small home in Taos, New Mexico, frame a study in two
cultures. Three girls from the Taos Pueblo Native community—Luzanna Lujan (1902–1979) and her two younger
sisters—wear colorful shawls and alternately stare out at the viewer, rest in the window seat, and gaze out the
window to the landscape beyond. The window, patterned wallpaper, and window trimmings of the artist Walter
Ufer’s home are all decidedly European in style. They seem to separate the three girls from the mountains of their
ancestral homeland and the Pueblo architecture visible across the town street. The large black ceramic wedding jar
beside the girls, perhaps made by a member of their community, reflects the style and vast legacy of pottery
production among the regional Pueblo cultures