OLIVE RUSH STUDIO & ART CENTER
Meet Artist Olive Rush. A Painter. A Quaker. A Quiet World Mover.
In 1925, pioneering painter Olive Rush wrote: "Artists are spiritual adventurers, and the strange beauty of the Southwest invites us to dare all things."
In 2023, a new non-profit organization called the Olive Rush Memorial Studio purchased the historic Olive Rush home and studio, including a robust collection of her art and furnishings and an archive of papers and photographs. We intend to transform Rush’s home and garden, including her frescos and painted decorations, into a full-time studio museum and lively community art center.
The studio museum will display Rush’s art and tell her story, as well as those of her female and indigenous friends, students, and colleagues. Through art classes, concerts and other events, the art center will foster creativity and artistic and spiritual adventures among locals and visitors. Become our partner in supporting the Olive Rush Studio & Art Center!
Olive Rush painting at Rush Hill c 1900 (Rush Family Photographs)
OLIVE RUSH’S HOUSE
A Center for Art, Community & Collaborative Friendships
In 1920, at age 47, Olive Rush moved to Santa Fe and bought the small adobe house at 630 Canyon Road. While Rush lived there, the house and garden was a center of art, creativity, spirituality, and collaborative friendships among New Mexico residents and visitors. Our vision is to return the property to that ethos and role.
Rush turned the front room into her studio. Her painting flourished there — becoming freer, more modern, more intuitive and more spirit-centered. She added guest and rental spaces to the property, usually renting to other artists. One 1922 visitor said her home’s “outstanding characteristic was a kind of spiritual cleanliness.” ¹
Rush established a beautiful, bountiful garden under the century old apple trees, with more fruit trees, grape vines, shrubs, vegetables, and flowers. That beauty and produce were shared with her community. In 1943, she wrote to a friend: “One lovely thing about a garden is the way one’s friends enjoy it. And they shout with joy at this season of the year when they enter at the back at the abundance of the fragrance and color not of flowers but of fruit.” ²
Rush respected and befriended local indigenous painters and supported their art as a buyer, reviewer, mentor and teacher of fresco and mural painting. They brought her their drawings for critique, painted murals under her supervision, visited her home, and invited her to their homes and communities.
1 Olive Rush to Ethel Brown 1922, in Gilmore 2016, p 71.
2 Olive Rush to Ethel Brown Leach 1943, in Gilmore 2016, p 185.
Olive Rush serving tea in her garden in 1936 (Olive Rush Studio & Art Center)
THE VISION
A Center for Adventurous Art, the Spirit, Friendship and Scholarship
Our goal is to reach the financial security that allows the Studio and Art Center to be open five days a week for rest, creativity, spiritual adventures, and art.
The house and garden will display Rush’s art on its walls. The studio will be restored and maintained as if Rush was still living there. In the restoration, we will retain its simplicity and beauty, while also conserving energy and keeping the art safe.
The studio museum will work with other museums, schools, and scholars to show and tell the story of Olive Rush, her indigenous and female colleagues, and their under-appreciated impacts on American art. Meanwhile, in the house and garden, artists will paint. Musicians will play and sing. Dancers will dance. There will be gatherings for worship, and for celebrating marriages, babies, graduations, and memorials.
Help Support the Vision
Join us and Together We Will Bring the Vision to Life
Subscribe to the Newsletter, so you will know what is going on.
Join us a member, on our Become A Member page. Your membership will help us open the studio and art center to the public.
Please go to our Support page and donate generously! Your donation will help maintain and restore the house and garden, open the studio and art center to the public, support the research archive, and hire staff to carry out the vision.
Our Museum Open Weeks in 2025 will be:
April 1 through April 6
This week we are hosting a Santa Fe Indian School Student Art Show and Sale
May 4 through May 10
June 30 through July 6
September 1 through September 7
Each open week will include special events and visiting days. Check back for details, or subscribe to our newsletter!