Biografie von Barbara LATHAM (1896-1976)

Birth place: Walpole, MA

Death place: Taos, NM?

Addresses: Came to Taos in 1925 and living in Rancho de Taos, NM in 1976

Profession: Painter, illustrator, author, graphic artist

Studied: Norwich Art School, CT; Pratt Inst.; ASL, Woodstock; ASL, with A. Dasburg, C. Rosen.

Exhibited: LOC; Phila. Print Cl., 1937; WMAA, 1940-41; Brooklyn Mus. Watercolor Int., 1940; prints, Carnegie Inst., 1944; prints, NAD, 1946, 1948 & 1949; AIC, Watercolor Int.; All. Artists Gal. Art, Taos, NM, 1970s; Governor's Gal., State Capitol, Santa Fe, 1977 (jointly with her husband); Witkin Gal., NYC, 1983; Phila. Artists All.; Weyhe Gal. (solo); Witte Mem. Mus. (solo); Slater Mem. Mus. (solo); Dallas Mus. FA (solo). Awards: several purchase prizes.

Member: NAWA

Work: Mus. New Mexico; Dallas MFA; MMA Print Coll.; LOC; Santa Fe Mus.; PMA; various Texas mus.

Comments: Best known for her scenes of New Mexico. She produced a number wood engravings (her great uncle, William Baxter Closson, working in the late 19th-century, was also a wood engraver and pioneered a number of improvements in the medium). Latham and her husband, etcher Howard Cook, traveled extensively. Publications: illus., "The Silver Dollar; Hurdy-Gurdy Holiday; Pedro, Nina and Perrito, Harper & Row, 1939, Calling South America, Ginn, 1945, Perrito's Pup, Knopf, 1946, Tales of Old Time Texas, Little, 1955 & Flying Horseshoe Ranch, Viking Press, 1955.

Sources: WW73; P&H Samuels, 279; Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists;201; Pisano, One Hundred Years...the National Association of Women Artists; Trenton, ed. Independent Spirits, 159.