Julian Robles carries the tradition of the great Southwest painters as do few other contemporary artists. With his mastery and sensitive renderings of indigenous culture, he provides a view into a vanishing frontier; he brings an authentic interpretation of our country’s most colorful native past. There is no updating or modernization in his canvases – they are as vintage and faithful as one could find on a gallery wall of 1910. His treatment of figures and environment conforms to the best work of the founding Southwest impressionist pioneers: Blumenschein, Couse, Sharp, Berninghaus, Ufer, Higgins, Dunton and so many others who shaped that glorious, stylized, mythic America. These legendary artists set a standard rarely met by those who followed.

The life of Julian Robles is a story that may best be told by his paintings. One painting in particular encompasses his beliefs, his sensitivities and his place in Taos history: “Santa Clara Olla & Sunflowers”. Painted in 1986, the sunflowers the black Santa Clara pot, with the crucifix speaks at a larger cultural narrative. His paintings have been described as “faithful”: to the subject, to his own beliefs and to his intensity.

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