Truth or Consequences, NM
Rio Bravo Fine Art, October 12-January 26
Harold Joe Waldrum, Un Triángulo Amarillo (A Yellow Triangle), aquatint etching, 13 x 13.
This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
A RARE RETROSPECTIVE featuring the works of artist Harold Joe Waldrum (1934-2003) opens this month at Rio Bravo Fine Art in Truth or Consequences, NM. This broad collection—all from the recently settled H. Joe Waldrum Trust—includes dozens of Waldrum’s linocuts, acrylic paintings, aquatint etchings, Polaroids, and slides, some of which date back to the 1960s and many of which feature the adobe churches and window imagery the artist explored throughout his career. The show opens on Saturday, October 12, with a reception at 6 p.m.
-
- Harold Joe Waldrum, Bell Tower at Corrales, 1995, acrylic, 40 x 40.
-
- Harold Joe Waldrum, El contrafuerte grande de la iglesia de Ranchos de Taos del sur #1, acrylic, 36 x 36.
-
- Harold Joe, Waldrum, El contrafuerte grande de la iglesia de San Ildefonso, 1993, reduction linoleum cut/linocut, 9 x 9.
Waldrum, a Texas native, had a penchant for titling his works in Spanish, sometimes using detailed, sentence-long descriptions, in a tribute to the Spanish heritage that he admired and frequently portrayed. “Joe fell in love with the Spanish culture and the people, and all these churches [he depicted] were built by Spaniards,” says Eduardo Alicea, the gallery’s director and curator and the sole trustee for the H. Joe Waldrum Trust.
Although Waldrum enjoyed considerable success as a painter and printmaker in northern New Mexico during the 1970s and ’80s, a desire to start a new phase in his career sent him to the small town of Truth or Consequences in southern New Mexico in 1996, where he worked toward establishing a fine-art gallery (now Rio Bravo Fine Art). “I came to work with Joe in 1999,” says Alicea, who remembers Waldrum as a passionately detail-oriented artist. Influenced by artists Mark Rothko and Josef Albers, Waldrum was particularly fascinated with color and form, as evidenced by the rich, saturated palettes, bold lines, and geometric shapes that define his imagery. The thousands of Polaroid photographs he snapped over his lifetime also reveal his deep interest in color and form. Often, he would photograph a single subject at different times of day and in different seasons to study the way light and shadow affected its color, notes Alicea’s assistant, Richard Koteras. In turn, Waldrum became an exceptional colorist. “It’s his astounding colors that make Joe’s work his own,” says Koteras.
-
- Harold Joe Waldrum, La Sombra Elegante (The Elegant Shadow), 1987, reduction linoleum cut/linocut, 24 x 24.
-
- Harold Joe Waldrum, Ranchos de Taos Con Luz Roja, 2003, acrylic, 24 x 24.
-
- Harold Joe Waldrum, La campana arriba de la morada de los cuatro de Abiquiu, 1998, acrylic, 72 x 72.
The artist was remarkably productive in his last year of life, creating over a dozen paintings and contributing to three art shows despite being diagnosed with colon cancer, says Alicea. Waldrum’s robust retrospective is a testament to his profound desire to create, to the very end, and a nod to his vibrant legacy as an important and not-to-be-forgotten fine artist. —Kim Agricola
contact information
575.894.0572
www.riobravofineartgallery.com
This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
MORE RESOURCES FOR ART COLLECTORS & ENTHUSIASTS
• Subscribe to Southwest Art magazine
• Learn how to paint & how to draw with downloads, books, videos & more from North Light Shop
• Sign up for your Southwest Art email newsletter & download a FREE ebook