NOTES ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE
AT&SANTA FE RAILWAY AND THE RISE OF THE
SANTA FE ART COMMUNITY

Nestled in the heart of Santa Fe is the old Santa Fe Depot, once the end of the line for artists coming from the East to capture the pristine beauty and unspoiled feeling of northern New Mexico. Through the confluence of several forces, including the industrial revolution, the rise of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, and trends in turn of the century American art, Santa Fe became an art mecca.

Edward P. Ripley, an early and long-time president of the AT&SF, envisioned the railroad as being the carrier and wayshower for a tide of American tourists bent on discovering the romance of the American Southwest. A promoter at heart, he urged W.F. White, the first advertising agent for the AT&SF, to develop an advertising campaign which would capture the public's imagination and make them want to explore a wild, beautiful alternative to the increasingly industrial and cramped East.

White knew of the work of artist Thomas Moran, who had accompanied Major John Wesley Powell, one of the first surveyors of the Grand Canyon. In 1892, the railroad invited Moran to return there, at its expense, to paint. In return, the railroad would receive all reproduction rights to one painting of its choice to use in an advertising campaign. The result was one of the most subtle, yet ubiquitous persuasions to come out of advertising: thousands of gilt-framed lithographs of The Grand Canon, painted by Thomas Moran were sent to offices, hotels, schools and homes in the East. Nowhere was the railroad mentioned; instead the prints served to capture the hearts and minds of thousands of people who came to want to visit the grandeaur of the Southwest. And the way to get there was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway.

This was the beginning of a decades-long collaboration between artists and the railroad that continues today. Popular turn of the century explorerlournalist Charles Fletcher Lummis, writing of his travels, proclaimed,

"Any man who is really an artist will find the Southwest a region where the ingenuity, the imagination, and the love of God are... visible at every turn.... It is high time for the artists to come upon the Southwest."

And artists did come, along with writers, explorers and scientists. They settled in areas where the Santa Fe Railway or its attendant tours came: Santa Fe, Taos, and the south rim of the Grand Canyon. These artists, brought here by the Santa Fe Railway and inspired by their love of the Southwest, painted the land and the people with brilliant colors and romantic realism.

This style was exactly what William Haskell Simpson, another Santa Fe advertising agent, was looking for. Mirroring the success of the Moran commission, Simpson began to send other artists on three-to-four week excursions. Out of these creative journeys came scores of pieces of art for museums, magazines and books expressly glorifying the impressive scenery of the Southwest, thereby profiting the Santa Fe Railway. Soon after this, Simpson began to use this vast body of work directly in posters, beautifully produced annual calendars, ads in publications and postcards. It was an ad campaign astonishing in its scope.

Trends in the American art scene dovetailed perfectly with the railroad's drive to utilize artists to portray the mysteries of the scenery and the people along its route. The romantic movement in literature and art was still popular and the vast vistas and exotic people of the West provided untapped subject matter. American artists were beginning to portray scenes from home, rather than idealizing European scenes. In 1900, a Paris exhibition critic had concluded "...there remains the somewhat depressing fact that [the exhibition's] works in the main are not national, do not exemplify American spirit or reflect American life." Just twenty years later, a visiting reviewer reported, "In that desert land a real school of American art has developed..." freed from European models and influences. Of course, the irony of this is that these early artists were still outsiders, as they were all white, and usually transported from the East.

People in the East yearned for a taste of the romance and adventure of the imagined past and the Santa Fe Railway was in an excellent position to profit from this feeling. Simpson moved swiftly to take advantage of the mood of the country. To avoid problems with reproduction rights later on, he urged the Santa Fe to buy works of art outright. In 1907, he acquired 108 paintings. Thus began the first, and one of the most important, corporate art collections in the country.

The Santa Fe was a boon to artists in another way. Along with the expansion of the railroad came the Fred Harvey Company, providing restaurants, hotels and tours all along the route. These restaurants and hotels purchased art to decorate their interiors, in the first deliberate use of "Santa Fe style." Additionally, most hotels had a retail space which sold arts and crafts of the area. Soon, the artists themselves became the tourist attractions. In one of the Harvey Houses' Indian-Detours, one to three day tours for adventurers wanting to get a more off-the-beaten-track experience, Taos is advertised as a "mecca for artists of national and international reputation."

From the beginning the artist colonies of Santa Fe and Taos had a mutually beneficial relationship with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway: art for support. In the process of the twenty plus years as the advertising agent for the railroad, William Simpson grew to admire the art of the region. Through his purchase of hundreds of works for the railroad, he became an important patron of Southwestern art while inaugurating the most comprehensive, effective program of development-publicity ever attempted by any railroad. His successors have continued to build the art collection and its parent company, now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, exhibits the collection throughout the country.

As for the Santa Fe Depot, it is now home for Santa Fe Southern Railway, the freight and excursion line that travels the spur from Lamy to Santa Fe, the last leg of the journey taken by scores of artists migrating to the area during the first decades of the century. Santa Fe Southern is an additional attraction, along with the art and cultural heritage of the area, still providing visitors with a piece of history and vistas of scenic beauty.

by Carol Raymond, Santa Fe Southern Railway

(Reference: "Notes from Visions & Visionaries, The Art & Artists of the Santa Fe Railway"
by Sandra D'Emilio and Suzan Campbell)

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