In 2023, a new non-profit organization called the Olive Rush Memorial Studio purchased the historic Olive Rush home and studio, including a robust collection of her art and furnishings and an archive of papers and photographs. Rush’s home and garden, including her frescos and painted decorations, is being transformed into a full-time studio museum and lively community art center.
Since her death in 1966, her home has served as the Santa Fe Friends Meeting House. Rush was one of the founding members of the Santa Fe Friends Meeting, established in 1948. And in a 1962 agreement, she specified her wishes for the house’s preservation.
See Rush’s paintings where they were created, enjoy her frescos and wall decorations, and sit quietly in her peaceful garden. The studio museum displays Rush’s art and tells her story, as well as those of her female and indigenous friends, students, and colleagues.
From age 17 to 47, Olive Rush studied art from multiple schools and teachers. During that period, she submitted her easel paintings to competitions. Some won prizes. Her national reputation grew steadily. Until 1920, Rush worked mostly in the Midwest and East Coast, and supported herself as a fulltime commercial illustrator and working artist. She worked as staff for Harpers Weekly and the New York Tribune and as a free-lance illustrator for books and magazines. On commission, she painted Indiana landscapes, portraits, a reredos (altar panel) in a Delaware Episcopalian church (still in use), and a mural in an Indianapolis grade school (now gone). In Santa Fe, Rush became a well-known fresco and mural artist, with commissions in private homes and commercial spaces.
Becoming increasingly drawn to modern trends in art, during the last half of her life Rush transformed her painting. Like many American artists of her time, she studied modernism, abstraction, surrealism and Kandinsky on the spiritual in art. She also studied El Greco, Chinese and Japanese brushwork and use of white space, and the art of indigenous Southwest communities and tribes. She combined those influences with her deep technical skills, her love of Southwest landscapes, her Quaker faith, and her increasingly intuitive and spirit-centered approach to painting.
Check the website for opening times, which are irregular.
Credit: Overview from museum website