Study for "Old Town A Century Ago"

Artist Morris Rippel (1930 - 2009)

Date1994

MediumPencil

Dimensions20 1/4 x 31 3/4 in. (51.4 x 80.6 cm)

ClassificationsDrawings, Pastels & Watercolors

Credit LineAlbuquerque Museum, gift of Morris Rippel

Object numberPC2005.2.3

DescriptionOriginal pencil drawing, study for "Old Town A Century Ago", featuring Old Town Plaza facing southwest. Horizontal format.

Morris Rippel used original photographs and Sanborn maps of Old Town to draw the plaza as it looked in 1895, almost 200 years after founding, from an angle of view not represented in period photographs. This drawing was then projected onto a large sheet of paper and redrawn to refine it for the painting (PC1994.17.1).

The drawing depicts the plaza looking southwest from the corner of Church and Santiago (now North Plaza and Romero.) Morris stated at the time of the gift that the only intentional discrepancy in the drawing and painting was the height of the flagpole, which should have been 121 feet high but was drawn shorter for aesthetic purposes. Particularly notable is the false front of the Ambrosio Armijo House and store, a view rarely found in early photographs of the Plaza.

On View

Not on view