Sharp, Joseph Henry

The first of the Taos Society artists to visit the area in 1893, Joseph Sharp is considered the father of The Founders. But Sharp, trained in Cincinnati, Munich, and Paris, had painted Plains Indians in Wyoming and Montana before settling in Taos. President Theodore Roosevelt even had a studio built for Sharp near the site of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. While there, Sharp painted over 200 portraits of Native Americans who had participated in that fateful engagement. Sharp made a permanent move to Taos in 1912.