William Lumpkins (1909-2000) was an American artist and architect best known for his abstract watercolors and pioneering solar adobe architecture. He was a founding member of the Transcendental Painting Group and cofounder of the Santa Fe Art Institute with Pony Ault.

Early life and education

William Thomas Lumpkins was born on April 8, 1909, at Rabbit Ears Ranch in Territorial New Mexico, one of five children born to Julia and William Lumpkins. In 1929 he graduated from Roswell High School, where he had met and befriended artist

Peter Hurd Peter Hurd (February 22, 1904 – July 9, 1984) was an American painter whose work is strongly associated with the people and landscapes of San Patricio, New Mexico, where he lived from the 1930s. He is equally acclaimed for his portraits and hi ...

. He studied art at the University of New Mexico and architecture at University of Southern California.

Architecture career

Bill Lumpkins was an early proponent of

passive solar design In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unl ...

, having built his first passive solar house in

Capitan Capitan and Kapitan are equivalents of the English Captain in other European languages. Capitan, Capitano, and Kapitan may also refer to: Places in the United States * Capitan, Louisiana, an unincorporated community *Capitan, New Mexico, a villag ...

, NM in 1935. The former residence of solar scientist Dr. J. Douglas Balcomb in Santa Fe, designed by Lumpkins with his company Sun Mountain Design, is considered by many the "quintessential solar adobe house." Lumpkins' adobe building designs were featured in the 1982 exhibition "Des Architecture de Terre" held at the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

and were the subject of a book, ''Pueblo Architecture and Modern Adobes : The Residential Designs of William Lumpkins''. Lumpkins' architectural work also included many restoration projects in New Mexico, including Santa Fe's Santuario de Guadalupe and hotel

La Fonda La Fonda on the Plaza is a historical luxury hotel, located at 100 E. San Francisco Street and Old Santa Fe Trail in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico adjacent to the Plaza. The hotel has been a member oHistoric Hotels of America the official progra ...

. Other buildings Lumpkins designed include: * William Black House *

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is a non-profit membership library located in La Jolla, in the city of San Diego, California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United State ...

* The Fort

Painting career

Lumpkins started exhibiting his paintings in 1932, most of which were

watercolors Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

. He met artist

Raymond Jonson Raymond Jonson (July 18, 1891 – May 10, 1982), was an American-born Modernist painter known for his paintings of the American Southwest. Born Carl Raymond Johnson, he originally signed his paintings C. Raymond Johnson, but later used Ray ...

in Santa Fe in 1935, and exhibited with Jonson and other members of the Transcendental Painting Group from 1938 to 1942. Lumpkins was one of the earlier

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, having employed the style about a decade before other American artists popularized it . His work has been exhibited at commercial art galleries,

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also ...

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...

, and

New Mexico Museum of Art The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located at 107 West Palace Avenue, one block off the ...

Public collections

* Museum of Fine Arts Boston * New Mexico Museum of Art * Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego * Roswell Museum and Art Center * The Albuquerque Museum

Writings

Lumpkins wrote three books about Southwestern architecture : * * and *

Legacy

In 1985 Lumpkins was awarded the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts for both art and architecture. The Lumpkins Ballroom at the

hotel in Santa Fe was named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lumpkins, William Artists from New Mexico USC School of Architecture alumni 20th-century American architects 20th-century American painters American male painters 1909 births 2000 deaths University of New Mexico alumni Federal Art Project artists 20th-century American male artists