Julius Rolshoven

Julius Rolshoven was born in Detroit, Michigan, and went to New York in 1877 to study at Cooper Union. He soon left New York for Germany and studied at the Düsseldorf Academy and the Royal Academy in Munich, then studied in Germany and Italy under American painter Frank Duveneck . Rolshoven remained in Europe traveling and exhibiting work until the start of World War I. He returned to the States, coming to northern New Mexico in 1916, where he began painting Native American portraits and scenes of the region. Many of Rolshoven’s works were staged inside a tent that he erected outside his studio because he found the Southwestern light too harsh, preferring the soft, filtered light the tent provided. He remained in New Mexico until 1921, splitting his time between Taos and Santa Fe. He was elected an associate member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1917.