In the fall of 1924, Laura Gilpin set off with two companions on her first extensive photography expedition to Mesa Verde and New Mexico, cementing a love of the Southwest that never wavered the rest of her life.
While Gilpin tackled other subjects during her six-decade career, she always returned to the people and places of that singular region, where she settled permanently in 1945.
Her affinity for all things Southwestern is palpable in her empathetic, revealing Navajo portraits and images capturing the sublime drama and mystery of the landscape.
While not on the scale of a touring retrospective that made a stop at the Colorado History Museum in 1986-87, an exhibition running through Dec. 31 at the Byers-Evans House Gallery nonetheless offers an impressive cross-section of her work.
It contains 45 photographs (including some rarities) spanning virtually the entirety of her career — all printed by Gilpin or, in one exception, under her supervision. They are on loan from a mix of public and private sources, including the Pikes Peak Library District and Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe.
Unfortunately, because of the gallery’s compact size, the images are hung two high with too little room separating them. Not only do the works look cramped, the awkward positioning of the labels does not always make it clear what is what.
Gilpin, who was born in Austin Bluffs, just north of Colorado Springs, in 1891, spent a significant portion of her early life in or around the city, as certain selections, such as “Pikes Peak from Colorado Springs” (circa 1922), make clear.
She easily ranks in the top 10 most important artists to emerge from the state, setting the stage for Robert Adams, another influential photographer who spent part of his childhood in Wheat Ridge and lived in Colorado Springs and Longmont for 35 years.
Resonances between their bodies of work are many, including a shared interest in ambitious book projects and a penchant for avoiding the obvious and focusing on elements in a scene that others might find banal or tangential.
Organized chronologically, the show begins with “The Prelude” (1917), her first widely exhibited and published work. Although intended as a promotional photo for a piano trio that included Gilpin’s friend Brenda Putnam, the artful lighting and composition make it something more.
As a student in 1916-17 at the Clarence H. White School, a photography training program in New York City, she experimented with pin-hole photography. She revisited the technique in 1922 in “Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs,” a tiny, otherworldly view of the familiar site.The show continues with examples of some of her most recognized images, concluding with a pair of 1973 and ’74 color photographs from her final series, a sweeping look at her beloved Canyon de Chelly, with its Anasazi ruins and startling rock formations.
Other highlights:
“At the Edge of the Plains” (circa 1923). Although associated more with the buttes and badlands of the Southwest, Gilpin also captured some of the most telling images ever of the plains, including “The Prairie” (1917), in which a figure seems engulfed by the vast emptiness of the land.
This related example, with pine branches and a figure on a ridge in the foreground, has some of the same epic quality but does not convey a similar feeling of openness. Instead, it keys on the dramatic meeting of two very different topographies.
This photograph, like about a third of the other selections, was printed using platinum, producing an affectingly soft, toned look. The metal gradually fell out of favor later, when tastes shifted to sharper, more defined imagery.
“White Iris” (1926). This simple, strikingly lit portrayal of the spring flower was used on the cover of the book that accompanied Gilpin’s 1986-88 retrospective and perfectly embodies its subtitle, “An Enduring Grace.”
“Colorado Sand Dunes” (1930). Other photographers have been drawn to the supple forms of sand dunes, but none has a created an image that better captures the poetry and subtle sensuality of the formations. It is enhanced only by the muted quality of the platinum print.
“Setah Begay, Navajo Medicine Man” (1932). A car breakdown during a 1930 trip to Arizona led to a lifelong association with the Navajo people and the 1968 publication of one of Gilpin’s more famous books, “The Enduring Navajo.” The show includes a range of images shot in the 1930s, including this portrait, and during later visits in the ’50s.
The breadth and ambition of her output and her unmistakable aesthetic have earned Gilpin a place among the leading American photographers of the 20th century.
Led by New York art dealer Lee Witkin and others, a rediscovery of her work was already underway by the early 1970s, and her standing has only accelerated upward since her death nearly three decades ago.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Laura Gilpin Masterworks”
Photography. Byers-Evans House Gallery, 1310 Bannock St. A career survey of 45 images by the famed photographer, who was born near Colorado Springs and spent much of her early life there. Through Dec. 31. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Free. 303-620-4933 or
More Laura Gilpin images
