Ila McAfee (1897-1995)
   Born and raised in the Colorado Rockies, Ila McAfee grew up drawing horses, not necessarily from life but from memory and imagination. As quoted in The Legendary Artists of Taos, "I can draw horses in any position because I know their anatomy and how they look and what they do;… my imaginary compositions and all action pictures are painted from memory and imagination…"
   Following high school Ila spent a year in art schools in Los Angeles before enrolling in Western State College (then a 2-year school) in 1917. After graduating in 1919, she went to Chicago and studied painting with the noted muralist James E. McBurney until 1924. Training at the Taft Studio with other art students, she obtained a substantial knowledge of sculpture by assisting them when their work included animals.
   During 1925 and 1926 she continued her studies in New York at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. In 1926 she married Elmer Page Turner, a fellow artist whom she had met at McBurney’s studio. The couple honeymooned in Taos and moved there permanently in 1928. They built the White Horse Studio on Armory Place, two blocks from the Plaza, and settled in for a lifetime of painting (with occasional forays into the decorative arts).
   In addition to over a thousand easel paintings, which are represented in numerous public and private collections, Ila’s murals were placed in the post offices of Clifton, TX, Cordell and Edmond, OK and Gunnison, CO, as well as in the public library of Greeley, CO. She was a particular friend of the noted Western art collector, Lutcher Stark and painted fifteen portraits of Lutcher’s longhorns at "Shangri-La." She also received every award that could be won at the New Mexico State Fair professional juried show.
   We are pleased to be able to offer this signature work (completed not later than March 1960):
"Entrance To Spring", o/canvasboard, 16" x 20"; in original frame to which are affixed two stickers, the first – "Title: Entrance to Spring, Artist Ila McAfee of Taos, and the second – "Panhandle Plains Historical museum, Canyon, Texas, Exhibited 1960 – April 1 – May 28 by? (illegible due to waterspots) Boone McClure". $ 12,500

Additional works available, please enquire

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