Olive Rush

Finding Her Place in the Santa Fe Art Colony

This engaging biography brings light to the life, art, and extraordinary contributions of Olive Rush (1873–1966), artist, illustrator, muralist, Native American art educator, and social reformer. Born in Indiana to Quaker parents, she left home at sixteen to attend college and later, art school. After a successful career as an illustrator and artist and traveling the world, Rush settled in Santa Fe, where she bought an old adobe farmhouse on Canyon Road, at the age of forty-seven. There she painted, showed her work, and hosted many visitors from near and far. Rush’s painting style over the years evolved from realistic to abstract and by the end of her career she was a modernist. She helped create a technique for “true” fresco painting and was hired as a WPA muralist, embarking on a period of public art projects. Rush was one of the first women to join the Santa Fe Art Colony. She interacted with notables such as Edgar L. Hewett, Mary Cabot Wheelwright, Jesse Nusbaum, and Kenneth Chapman; and artists including Gustave Baumann, Georgia O’Keeffe, Will Shuster, and John Sloan. During Rush’s lifetime, her paintings were acquired by numerous museums and many private collectors. One of her most famous paintings, Girl on Turquoise Horse, was purchased by Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover.