Laverne Nelson Black was born in 1887 in Viola, Wisconsin, a town located in the Kickapoo Valley. The Kickapoo Valley is home to a range of Native American tribes, and so growing up, Black was fully immersed in the culture and influence of these Native peoples. An artist from a young age, Black utilized natural pigments, especially “the red keel, a soft marking stone which the Indians used for painting their faces for their dances.” Though Black’s family moved to Chicago, with Black attending the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts on a merit scholarship, Black continued to travel out West in order to return to his preferred Native American subjects. Following his education, Black worked for a time as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines. However, his health grew poor, and he moved to Taos, New Mexico with his family in the late 1920s, settling in the dry, hot climate.

Also in Taos was the Taos Society of Artists, “formed in 1915 to provide a link between artists…and the major American art markets.” By the time Black re-located to Taos, the society was well established and active. Like Black, many of the society’s artists gravitated towards an Indian subject matter, seeing the Native Americans at first as “raw material” and later, after “stripping the veil of Romanticism from the Indians,” as 20th century citizens with a “basic common humanity.” At their best, writes Stephen L. Good, Taos pictures have “a truly haunting quality.”

Laverne Black, although a later addition to the society, ranks among the best of the Taos artists, his paintings haunting in the way that they stay with you long after you have looked away. Black was particularly drawn to “the color and rhythm” of Indian dances, and emulated them through his broad, painterly brush strokes and warm hues, as well as large, saturated blocks of color from the palette knife. Black was able to capture the essence of a thing with just the barest hints of detail, an impressive feat given the intricacy of many of the scenes depicted in his work.

Taos is one such painting. In it, riders, likely from the Apache or Navajo tribes sit astride horses, gathering in the snow with the barest hints of the deep blue Sangre de Cristo mountains peeping through the background. There is a palpable sense of energy in the painting, a feeling that something–– perhaps a hunt, or a journey, is about to take place. Black’s palette of earthy reds and browns, broken up by pops of turquoise, red and pink, is brilliant against the bright white snow in the foreground. His characteristic broad strokes of paint are on full display in Taos, lending the picture a certain freeness. Furthermore, the composition, though complicated, is not confusing; the figures exist as a group, but also remain individualistic, as do the horses and dogs. In Taos, Black combines his unique personal style with the values of the Taos Society of Artists, creating a delightful, exciting snapshot of Western life in the early 20th century.

Given Laverne Nelson Black’s wonderful mix of painterly technique and immersive visual storytelling–– as evidenced by Taos–– it is no wonder that he was selected for several PWA projects, including two murals in the Phoenix post office, where he later lived. Black’s work has also been collected by a number of institutions, such as the Denver Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.