Hey hey USA - 2nd November - on our way out of Taos, the Harwood Art Museum and the Church of San Francisco de Assis


 We packed up and our little house in Taos and headed out, first stopping for a quick look at the Harwood Art Museum. This museum was founded in 1923, when Taos was one of the major centres in the USA for modern art. The collections are mainly from Taos and contain a lot of indigenous art. When we were there, there was a temporary exhibition of black American cowboy photography through time which was interesting.











We were heading back south to Santa Fé where I had already booked accommodation for 2 nights. We decided to go back the same way as we had come to Taos, on the High Road route. This took us past the Church of San Francisco de Assis Mission Church. This church was built by the Franciscans between 1813 and 1815 to serve the little community of Rancho de Taos. This was at the time when this area was still under Spanish rule. It has been painted by Georgia O'Keeffe and photographed by Ansel Adams, Paul Strand and many others. Indeed the Taos Chamber of Commerce maintains it is "one of the most photographed and painted churches in the world".
This obviously did not stop me adding my twopenny's worth.

Rancho de Taos is a strip of development along the main Highway 68 but the mountains hang over as a backdrop to the landscape.










Graphically, the back and sides of the holding are more interesting as you can really appreciate the immensity of the adobe structure.











Around the church are smaller buildings and the mountains lie to the east.















 

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