A Life Shaped by the West
Born in Reutlingen, Germany, in 1907, Helmut Naumer, Sr. moved to New York City at seventeen. By 1926, he had arrived in the United States, eventually finding his way to California to study at the Frank Wiggins Trade School and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Before settling into a life of painting, he spent six years working in the Merchant Marines. The sea provided a period of movement and distance before he returned to Santa Fe in 1932.
The landscapes of New Mexico became his primary focus. He lived for many years in the San Sebastian Ranch area near Santa Fe and also resided in Pecos. His early interests were shaped by the stories of Karl May, particularly the lore of the American West. This connection to the land and its history stayed with him through his later years in New Mexico.
The Choice of Pastel
While he worked with oils and watercolors, Naumer preferred the use of pastels. He found that this medium allowed him to catch the way light changed quickly across the sky and water. In the Southwest, colors shift rapidly across the landscape, and pastels offered a way to record these transitions without the delay of mixing oils. His technique often involved using dark backgrounds, which helped the colors of the local scenery appear to glow.
His paintings were frequently composites of landscapes rather than exact, realistic depictions of a single spot. He focused on capturing the atmosphere and the specific light of the region. This approach allowed him to translate the feeling of the New Mexico landscape into something more immediate.
Work for the National Park Service
During the 1930s, Naumer participated in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. He was commissioned by the National Park Service to create works for the visitor center exhibits at Bandelier National Monument. Between 1935 and 1936, he produced fourteen pastel artworks that documented scenes from the monument and nearby pueblos.
Some of his specific subjects included:
- The Administration Building in Frijoles Canyon.
- Taos Pueblo, showing its multi-storied buildings against the mountains.
- Picuris Pueblo, including its church and the horno used for baking bread.
- Scenes of the landscape near the Long House trail.
His work from this period remains in collections such as the Bandelier museum and the New Mexico Museum of Art. In 2016, the United States Postal Service featured his painting of the Administration Building on a commemorative postage stamp.
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