Robert Daughters (1929-2013)

Robert Daughters biography:

Robert Daughters (1929-2013) was an acclaimed American painter known for his expressive interpretations of the landscapes and cultures of the American Southwest. In recognition of his lasting contribution to regional art, he received the 2004 Master of the Southwest Award from Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine and was featured in the magazine’s March 2004 issue.

For more than three decades, Daughters has celebrated the Southwest through a distinctive visual language marked by bold brushwork, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and meticulously structured compositions. Over time, his work has evolved into a highly recognizable style in which powerful design underpins expressive color and atmosphere.

Daughters refers to his technique of alternating light and dark passages as cloisonné, drawing a parallel to the ancient Asian enamel process. Dark linear elements separate fields of color, sharply defining landscape forms and creating a strong sense of structure and visual rhythm.

Raised in St. Joseph, Missouri, Daughters graduated from high school before serving three years in the military. He later worked as Curator of Display at the St. Joseph Museum of Natural History while attending the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design. Prior to relocating to New Mexico, he became a partner in a highly successful advertising art studio in Kansas City. During those seventeen years, he earned numerous awards from the National Society of Art Directors, the Artist Guide, major paper companies, and other professional organizations.

A pivotal moment in Daughters’ artistic life came during a 1953 visit to Taos, where he was captivated by the region’s light and natural beauty. He and his family moved to Santa Fe in 1970 and settled in Taos in 1972. That same year, he received the Best of Show Award, the Governor’s Purchase Award, and a Merit Award at the New Mexico State Fair. Since then, he has participated in numerous one-man, group, and museum exhibitions throughout the United States.

In 1981, Daughters’ work was included in Collection of Art of the West at the Beijing Exhibition Center in China. In 1995, he was selected as one of sixty artists featured in Covering the West: The Best of Southwest Art, a landmark exhibition drawn from Southwest Art magazine’s 300 cover artists. He was also featured in Southwest Art magazine’s 30th Anniversary issue in May 2004.

Daughters’ work has been widely published in art magazines, books, and journals, and he is listed in Who’s Who in American Art. In 1984, he was the featured artist for the New Mexico State Calendar, which reproduced thirteen of his paintings.

Rather than identifying strictly as an impressionist or expressionist, Daughters describes himself as a “composist”—an artist focused on color harmony, the contrast of light and dark values, and, above all, structure. His paintings are developed from photographs, charcoal drawings, and small plein-air oil studies, with emphasis placed on the orderly arrangement of shapes, tonal relationships, and atmospheric effect.

“The composition always comes first,” Daughters has said. “I like to have an important visual point; sometimes it’s a structure, and sometimes it might be a color.”

For twenty years, he lived and worked in the historic O.E. Berninghaus home and studio in Taos.

Paintings:

Click on images to enlarge.

“Taos Evening”
Robert Daughters
oil   18″ x 24″
SOLD

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Biography courtesy AskArt.com