Ralph M. Pearson, Church at Ranchos de Taos, 1919

By his writings as well as by his work, Pearson has probably done more than anyone to encourage an escape, in etching, from the deadness of traditional presentation. — James Laver, A History of British and American Etching (1929)

Ralph Pearson’s mastery of etching is evident in “Church at Ranchos de Taos” through the economy of line with which the artist has successfully rendered the adobe structure, and figures in motion. This etching depicts the mission church of Ranchos de Taos in northern New Mexico, and as with much of his work, reveals the simplicity of a former time.

The church was built between 1772 and 1816. As with all adobe structures, maintenance of the church is continual. With centuries of community hands having affected the form of the building, it is, in a poetic sense, a living entity. Pearson’s depiction of the Ranchos de Taos church presages the many artists who were subsequently inspired by it. As Georgia O’Keeffe once noted, “Most artists who spend any time in Taos have to paint it, I suppose, just as they have to paint a self-portrait.”

Pearson was one of the earliest modern artists to establish himself in New Mexico and is counted among its most accomplished printmakers.

Ralph M. Pearson, a painter and etcher who had been liberated by the Armory show from “the straitjacket of convention,” took up residence on a ranch south of Taos in 1915. Pearson apparently brought his etching press to the ranch either in 1915 or shortly thereafter, for by 1918 he had produced a number of etchings sufficient for an exhibition in Santa Fe. … Among dated prints in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts [Museum of New Mexico], the earliest made in the state are an etching by Pearson and a lithograph by [Birger] Sandzen, both from 1919. — Clinton Adams, Printmaking in New Mexico: 1880–1990 (1991)

Ralph Pearson studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, under C. F. Browne and Vanderpoel, and was a member of the Art Students League of Chicago, the Chicago Society of Etchers, the New York Society of Etchers, California Art Club, the California Society of Etchers, and the Brooklyn Society of Etchers. His etchings garnered awards from the Chicago Society of Etchers (1914), the Pan Pacific Exposition, San Francisco (1915), the American Bookplate Society (1917), and the California Print Maker’s Society (1922). He also wrote on the arts and published How to See Modern Pictures (1925), Fifty Prints of the Year (1927), and a monthly column called “The Artist’s Point of View” in The Forum magazine.

Ralph Pearson’s etchings are held in a number of important collections including the Museum of New Mexico, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Public Library, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Mobile Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, and Columbia University.

Ref: Clinton Adams, Printmaking in New Mexico: 1880–1990 (1991), plate no. 6.