Carl Redin, Enchanted Mesa

Carl Redin
1892 Stockholm, Sweden - 1944 Los Gatos, California
Enchanted Mesa
oil on canvas
1930
40 x 50 ¼ in.
museum purchase, 1985 General Obligation Bonds, Albuquerque High School Collection
PC1980.170.1

After moving to New Mexico for his health, Carl Redin was unusual among his artist contemporaries for preferring life in Albuquerque to the burgeoning New Mexican art communities of Santa Fe and Taos. While he was in some ways a traditional, academic European painter who preferred landscapes, he incorporated modern stylistic elements in striking compositions that explored color and light as integral elements of the Southwestern vista. His interpretation of New Mexico’s iconic skies in Enchanted Mesa, for example, is quite different from the typical billowing clouds seen in many landscapes.