FOR THOSE WHO spend a fair amount of time in northern New Mexico, entering the historic Fechin House in Taos brings a sense of welcome familiarity. The home of the Taos Art Museum is known as an architectural masterpiece, an example of the Pueblo and Mission Revival styles seen throughout the region.

Built by Russian painter Nicolai Fechin (1881–1955) and his wife, Alexandra (1893–1983), over a five-year period beginning in 1928, the Fechin House’s majesty shines in its details: adze-cut wood; carved railings, columns, vigas, doors, and furniture; bespoke fixtures, pulls, and hinges; and other structural and design elements the Fechins carried over from Russia. With its unique but symbiotic merging of Old-World styles with Indigenous- and Spanish-inspired designs from the New, Fechin House remains a draw for people who are as interested in its construction as they are in the historic artwork by Taos painters that adorns its walls.

“There’s something for everybody here,” says Christy Coleman, executive director of the Taos Art Museum, which acquired the property and rechristened itself the Taos Art Museum at Fechin House in 2003. “Along with the art, you can get into the architecture of it, and all the wood carving,” Coleman says. The museum hosts more than 13,000 visitors a year.

The kitchen features photographs by Zoë Zimmerman.

It was once a home like any other, where people worked, played, ate, and slept. Domestic objects have been stored for decades in its basement: tubes of paint, aging photographs, a high-heeled shoe, a blue glass atomizer, a book of cocktail recipes—all hinting at the personal stories of past inhabitants. In the museum’s current exhibition, still lifes of these objects by Taos-based photographer Zoë Zimmerman enhance the home’s lived-in feeling. The stories they tell are bitter and sweet.

“I have a lot of respect for the objects,” says Zimmerman, who was partly inspired by still lifes of the Dutch masters. “It was definitely a challenge to photograph these random objects and have them be emotive. I found a lot of it to be very sad in the way that nostalgic objects are melancholy because they reflect a time that is past.”

The relics from the European family’s short, creative burst in the Southwest tell another tale. “It’s a story of a failed marriage,” Zimmerman says.

“It’s a series of buildings that you experience as you walk through the grounds. You can’t just match the Fechin House. That’s a tall order.”

—architect david henry

BORN IN KAZAN, RUSSIA, IN 1881, FECHIN trained as a painter at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, making a name for himself as a realist. But the prestigious academy met with formal abolition during the Russian Revolution. The aftermath, along with World War I and a devastating famine, spurred Fechin to seek his fortune in America, where he immigrated with Alexandra and daughter Eya in 1923.

In 1927, after contracting tuberculosis, he relocated to Taos from New York City; the desert Southwest was purported to have a healthful climate for the afflicted. Fechin had already spent a summer as the guest of famed Taos socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan and was familiar with such art-inspiring sights as Taos Pueblo and the stunning mountains beyond.

Executive director Christy Coleman.

Nicolai and Alexandra divorced in 1933, soon after the extensive renovations were completed. Alexandra remained the home’s sole resident until 1946, when she relocated to the studio. In 1955, Fechin died in Southern California, where he’d spent the remainder of his life as an artist and private instructor; in 1977, Eya established an institute to sponsor exhibitions in the house.

“He wanted this to be a home for his family, and it was really the first home he ever had,” Coleman says. “He poured his heart and soul into it. He was not happy about the divorce. He was heartbroken to leave.”

Fechin, like most of the Taos Society of Artists, was captivated by the lifeways of the Indigenous peoples of New Mexico, whose portraits he painted. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he avoided romanticizing his subjects, aiming to capture a sense of the individual or spirit within. “He was more fascinated by interesting faces, and he doesn’t put them into an idealized Southwest setting,” Coleman says. “He paints them for who they are.”

The Janis and Roy Coffee Jr. Gallery.

The same is true for his endearing portraits of Alexandra and Eya, which are also on view. Renowned for its impressionistic and expressive portraiture, Fechin’s work proved a good fit to be displayed in the Taos Art Museum with the works of other established local artists, including Oscar E. Berninghaus, E. Irving Couse, and Joseph Henry Sharp. But the pressure to preserve a growing collection of Taos masters is a constraint for a museum that was built as a home and not as an exhibition space. Now this historic property is getting a much-needed expansion.

Not the two-story home itself, which is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Instead, a former administration building on the property is being reinvented—and rebuilt—as an exhibition space.

The light-filled Fechin studio.

“WE’VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SHOW AS much work as we’d like to,” Coleman says, adding that the Fechin House itself will now be solely dedicated to work “by and about or related to Nicolai Fechin, honoring him and the home that he created.” The new space will be dedicated to opportunities for other artists and exhibitions.

The bulk of the construction on the new gallery, which is named for donors Janis and Roy Coffee Jr., was completed over the summer. To connect its historic style with contemporary design aesthetics and the needs of a space suitable for showing art, the museum hired David Henry of Taos-based Henry Architects. Pueblo and Mission Revival styles, as well as Fechin’s own creative contributions to the property, served as inspiration.

“Even if you don’t know anything about the artist, you’ve got to be impressed by the carved wood elements: the corbels, the columns, the doors, the trim, the case work, and cabinetry,” Henry says. “We tried to simplify and abstract some of those existing elements and bring them into the gallery space.” The Fechin-inspired, hand-carved woodwork was handled by local contractor Los Alamitos.

A cabinet built for personal treasures.

Henry Architects faced other challenges. “It’s not just one building,” Henry says. “It’s a series of buildings that you experience as you walk through the grounds.” Maybe most difficult was attempting to mimic the 1920s building and still meet modern building and electrical codes, energy constraints, and ADA compliance. “You can’t just match the Fechin House,” he says. “That’s a tall order.”

The expansion, scheduled for completion this fall, includes a much-needed archive building, allowing museum staff to preserve and expand Fechin’s legacy by adding works from his colleagues to their permanent collection. The art and archive building has a similar footprint to the exhibition space: about 2,000 square feet. Along with their monetary gift, the Coffees donated their collection of 150 paintings and drawings by Taos masters.

“It essentially doubled the size of our collection,” says Coleman, who was still finalizing a date for a grand reopening. “I think the first show in here will be selections from the Coffees’ collection.”

The new project isn’t just about expanding the art collection and providing visitors with a new venue for art. It’s about preservation and patrimony. In less than a decade, Fechin built a legacy that has long outlived a shattered domestic dream. It’s a home that stands as a portrait in its own right—of an artist, of a family, of an art scene—and still has stories to tell.

Read more: A former museum guard reflects on his journey through New Mexico art history.

TAOS ART MUSEUM AT FECHIN HOUSE

227 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos; 575-758-2690.

Rediscover the Fechin family's past through Zoë Zimmerman's stirring photos of their personal items.

 

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Zoë Zimmerman’s photographs capture untold stories in Fechin family relics in the exhibition Forsaken Objects & Untold Stories: Photographs by Zoë Zimmerman, on view through January 12, in the historic Fechin House. Her images hint at narratives of everyday life, placing the Fechins in a time and place and creating a nostalgic portrait through the idiosyncratic and commonplace objects they owned.

Also on exhibit, but inside Nicolai Fechin’s art studio, which is also part of the historic property in Taos, is The Story of Us—The Art of Richard Alan Nichols: A Thirty-Year Retrospective. The exhibition is a series of impressionistic portraits and landscapes that reflect Nichols’s decades-long engagement with the people and terrain of the mountainous region. The Story of Us is on view through October 27.