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It was nearly 100 years ago that Dorothy Brett (10 November 1883 – 27 August 1977) first arrived in Taos, New Mexico from England, in 1924, with Frieda and D.H. Lawrence. Leaving behind a life of royal status in Great Britain and her circle of friends among the Bloomsbury Group, she chose to remain in Taos and make a go of it. In London she had studied at the Slade School of Art for 6 years. She had already established a career as a well-recognized painter in London. 

Most visitors to her home and studio were making pilgrimages to Taos to hear Brett’s firsthand accounts of her time with D.H. Lawrence, perhaps the best known of any Taos resident. 

In Taos, Brett befriended the people of Taos Pueblo, with whom she became enamored, many of whom she relied upon as confidants. At the time of her arrival, there was already a well-formed group of men, known as the Taos Society of Artists creating paintings of the Native Peoples.

The paintings Brett created in Taos bore a difference from those of her Taos painter contemporaries; they were ephemeral, awash in light and color, full of movement and form. She learned every nuance of Puebloan ceremonials, documenting them in her paintings of ceremonies through memory. Brett never relied on photography, although some believed her to do so as her depictions were quite spot on. She would check in with her Pueblo friends among the Taos people to confirm that she had gotten it right in her paintings. 

In the painting Deer Hunter, Brett used rows of aspen trees to create a grand, staged depiction of the Pueblo people and their carrying out of a ceremonial blessing to the deer that provides sustenance to the people of the Pueblo. At foreground, horses carry the freshly harvested deer to be worn as a robe during the Christmas Day Deer Dance, a ceremony which remains the same to this day. During the ceremony, hunters young and old wear these robes, made of deer hides complete from head to tail, draped over themselves. Using canes in each hand as they walk, they mimic and honor the deer of the forest. We know the setting is winter in Deer Hunter due to the snow-covered mountain just beyond the tree line. Brett’s Deer Hunter gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes look leading up to the ceremonial dance for Christmas. 

Dorothy Brett has remained under the radar of many curators and art collectors for far too long. Museums, curators and the public alike are continually searching for that extraordinary “undiscovered” female artist, much like Hilma af Klint. In the far away land of the Taos art colony, the Honorable Dorothy Brett’s time is now.

- Robert Cafazzo, Curator of the upcoming exhibit, “Dorothy Brett 100 Years in Taos”, The Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM, 2024