An added feature of staying at Hotel La Fonda de Taos during our recent trip to New Mexico was a private viewing of D.H. Lawrence’s oil paintings that were banned in London. During the years I lived in Taos, I had never viewed the nine nude and semi-nude paintings by this noted author, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity during this visit. Staying at the hotel entitled me to see the paintings for free.
Beside his writing, Lawrence had a serious interest in painting. Those nine pieces were originally seized in 1929 by police from a London gallery because of their content. Rather than have the paintings destroyed, Lawrence, who then lived in Italy, agreed to remove them from England. Following his death, his widow Frieda Lawrence brought them to Taos. In 1956, Frieda’s second husband, Angelo Ravagli, sold the paintings to Saki Karavas, the Hotel La Fonda de Taos’ owner. They eventually were passed to the Sahd family.
Lawrence’s connection to Taos is an interesting one. He and Frieda were drawn there in 1922 by Mabel Dodge Sterne Luhan, who brought so many famous authors and artists to Taos. She gave the Lawrences 160 acres with two modest buildings 20 miles north of Taos. In return, Luhan was gifted the original manuscript of Sons and Lovers. You can learn more about that in an earlier post.
Lawrence lived in the Taos area for less than two years — the only time he lived in the U.S. He died of tuberculosis in Vence on March 1, 1930.
So, now for the viewing … all I needed to do was to ask the person at the front desk to let me into the locked room, which is what I did one afternoon. (The noted Navaho painter R.C. Gorman created the pieces of art on its walls.)
I sat on a bench and the curtains, which extended from the high ceiling to the floor, were drawn apart. A recording about their history begin to play. Yes, I could take photos. And then I was left alone.
Like his novels, Lawrence’s paintings are explicit with eroticism. But I wasn’t there to judge the subject matter but to simply observe the paintings created by an author I admire, one who wrote books I treasure, like the one I own above. Certainly, D.H. Lawrence had so many talents, and I felt now I had a fuller picture.