Joseph Fleck  (1892-1977)

He was born in Vienna, Austria 1893, and he lived in Taos until 1963.  Fleck was a Taos painter from 1924-1943, as well as a muralist and lithographer.  His work is in the Witte Memorial Museum in Ft. Worth, Texas as well as Carnegie Hall, New York.

Fleck studied at the Royal Academy and the School of Graphic Industrial Art in Vienna, Austria..   He was winning awards at the Kansas City Art Institute by 1923, with a one-person show in Houston, Texas in 1930 as well as in Paris and Chicago in 1931.  In the Depression he painted government-sponsored murals.  Fleck lectured on Spanish Art and was Artist-in- Resident and Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas City Missouri from 1943-1946.

Fleck arrived in Taos in 1924 after viewing New Mexico paintings exhibited by the Taos Founders in Kansas City.  He was then a representational painter working in a straightforward style.  By the 1940’s, he became influenced by impressionism, especially after being exposed to the work of Thomas Hart Benton, during his tenure at the University of Kansas City Missouri.