Nuevo Mexico Profundo Interview Series: Mac Watson

This subject is near and dear to many of us, especially at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. Mac Watson is a consummate professional in the field of preservation, and our former Chair of the Foundation Board. He is a native of Santa Fe and the interview covers growing up here, his life and work, and thoughts on the future of preservation. This is well worth a listen from a well respected member of this community.

Mac has added this written note to his audio discussion:

After listening to the recording of my conversation with Frank Graziano I became concerned that, in response to Frank’s questions about my experiences growing up in Santa Fe and about my relations with Hispanic children in particular, I may have presented a completely negative story. I spoke about a few experiences when I was subject to aggression at the hands of small gangs of Hispanic kids, mainly because those moments are at the surface of my memory and recalled without effort.  What I failed to mention are the many Hispanic friends I had throughout my time in public school here in Santa Fe, from the 4th grade and until I left after the 10th grade to attend school on Colorado.

As one might expect, most but not all of these friendships were with boys. When I started the 4th grade I knew not a soul in the school so Rudy Rios, whose desk was next to mine soon became my “best friend.” We have remained friends over all the years that have passed and I became close to many in his family--his parents, his younger brother  León, his sisters Cecilia and Rita, and Rudy’s nephew Juan. Before the Covid struck, one of my favorite pastimes was to join the Rios family in the family home on Camino del Monte Sol for their regular family lunch.

Several of my friendships were made with kids who were in the both in the junior high and high school bands with me. These include the brothers Donald and Horacio Manzanares and Stanley Griego Evans. Stan, when I meet him now, never fails to make sure that I’m told that he was a better musician than I was.

I knew the basketball stars Jerry and Leonard Roybal in junior high. Because we were in the same grade, Leonard and I were closer. I remain happy to congratulate Lenny whenever he coaches the Espanola Sun Devils to another state championship. These friendships and many others were possible for me because Santa Fe’s neighborhoods were considerably more ethnically “mixed” than they are now. 

About Nuevo Mexico Profundo
Nuevo Mexico Profundo is the venture that conducts tours of New Mexico churches on the High Road, in the mountain villages, at pueblos, to raise money for the repair and restoration of these churches so important to the communities where they reside. Profundo is a collaboration started by Frank Graziano and supported by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, Spanish Colonial Arts Society, Cornerstones Community Partnerships, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, the Office of the New Mexico State Historian, and the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance. Given the conditions of the ongoing health crisis, tours and events planned by Profundo have been canceled for the year. This program of interviews and recording histories was put into action according to social distancing and health regulations. You can learn more about Nuevo Mexico Profundo at nuevo-mexico-profundo.com.

BOOK REVIEW — In a Modern Rendering

Cover of In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné

In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné by Gala Chamberlain

A Book Review by Alan “Mac” Watson

With the appearance of Gala Chamberlain’s monumental In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné (Rizzoli Electra, 2019), Santa Fe’s beloved Gustave Baumann becomes established as an artist of international stature.  This is a wonderful work of scholarship, presenting not only an authoritative catalogue of the 190 known editions of Baumann artistic color woodcuts but also an additional 200 pieces of “ephemera and undated color woodcuts,” plus an additional 35 pieces described by Chamberlain as “problematic pieces”—linear blocks, each of which expresses the entire image of an existing color woodcut.

The Catalogue is prefaced by a formidable essay of critical biography by Nancy Green of Cornell University, the carefully documented facts of Baumann’s life—his lifelong development from a meticulous craftsman to an artist of brilliant vision and technique.

Master printer, Baumann afficionado, and Director of the Press at the Palace of the Governors Tom Leech has contributed an essay of fascinating insights into Baumann’s printing methods, his materials of wood, inks and paper, and his tools for carving blocks and making successive impressions where each color requires a separately carved block.

And Chamberlain herself has contributed a further essay on Baumann’s “Studio Practices,” presenting an account of the varieties of paper he used over the decades, his “chops” (seals, signatures and symbols  that he used in signing his work), and the problems of dating the discreet editions he issued of the colored woodblock prints.

The Catalogue was initiated by Ann Baumann, daughter of Gustave and Jane, who inherited the Baumann estate which includes extensive archival material—personal letters, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and records of Gustave’s paintings, records of sales, catalogues, consignments and exhibitions—all of which Chamberlain draws upon to compile the Catalogue.  Chamberlain’s meticulous scholarship over the past three decades is apparent on every page of this impressive book.

Weighing in at roughly eight pounds (629 pages), this is not a book to curl up with on a winter’s evening! The publication was undertaken with the highest standards of bookmaking in mind, designed in the tradition of fine Baumann craftsmanship by Leslie Fitch and David Skolkin and published by Rizzoli, known internationally for its surpassing works of pictorial art.

Many of the full-page illustrations in the Catalogue have been photographed by the Museum of New Mexico’s excellent Blair Clark. Nonetheless, they must fall short of the actual woodcuts printed by the artist himself. As Tom Leech’s essay so gracefully observes: “I encourage you, when looking at a Baumann woodcut, also to look into it, to discern one layer from another…you will find different degrees of impression and thickness of ink. Keep in mind that, even though the reproductions in this book are of the highest quality, they are essentially two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional art.”

By Gala Chamberlain
With essays by Nancy E. Green, Thomas Leech
Foreword by Martin F. Krause
Rizzoli Electa
Hardcover, 648 pages
$175.00

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Gala Chamberlain is the trustee of the Ann Baumann Trust and director of the Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, California.

Nancy E. Green is the Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of European and American Art, Prints, and Drawings, 1800-1945 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

Thomas Leech is director of the press at the Palace of the Governors and a curator at the New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe.