Taos News: Second Wave: The Beginning of a Post War Era

203 Fine Art presents "Second Wave: The Beginning of a Post-War Era," an exhibition that explores the lasting influence of artists who, supported by the GI Bill, helped shape the evolving artistic landscape of Taos in the years following World War II.

The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 — better known as the GI Bill — provided returning veterans with unprecedented access to higher education, professional training and resources for reintegration into civilian life. For artists, it opened doors to study at prestigious institutions across the country and abroad. Art schools flourished in the region during this period, including the Mandelman-Ribak Taos Valley Arts School the Bisttram School of Fine Art, and the University of New Mexico’s Summer Field School of Art.

The Second Wave artists not only advanced modernism but also infused it with a distinctive spirit: reflective, radical and deeply connected to place. Taos, already celebrated for its luminosity and dramatic landscapes, became a magnet for these post-war innovators. Here, the “Taos Moderns” rejected regionalism, social realism and commercial tropes in favor of bold abstraction and a reimagined landscape genre.