After a brief course of art study under Gittardo Piozzoni in
San Francisco, Carlos Vierra’s first love drew him away and he shipped
“before the mast” on a five-month voyage around the horn.
Before the end of the voyage a serious accident occurred, which
blended for him of ill and good. His chest was crushed against
a spar by a whipping sail. This ended his sailing life and he
again t,urned to art. At twenty-one he was achieving success as
a marine painter when a lung ailment, probably induced. by the
accident, forced him to seek a dry climate. After a year alone
in a mountain cabin in New Mexico, he resumed his career as
an artist and helped to found the celebrated artist colony of
Santa Fe.
Before his death in 1937, Carlos Vierra’s creative development
had grown in many directions, and he was recognized as
an illustrator for national magazines, for his marine and desert
canvases, for a superb series of mission paintings, and for the
murals in the Saint Francis auditorium of the New Mexico State
Museum, which he helped to complete. He planned and built his
own Pueblo-style home in Santa Fe, and designed public buildings
there, becoming an authority on the architecture of the
Pueblos. Photography was another highly developed interest,
including, towards the end of his life, aerial photography. High
among his accomplishments, however, must always stand the
six murals in the Museum of Man in San Diego.
article from Carlos Vierra, Painter of Mayan Cities by Wilmer B Shields, from El Museo V II, No. 2, Museum of Man, San Diego
View works by Carlos Vierra