Hennings, E. Martin, House and Studio Historic District

The E. Martin Hennings House and Studio Historic District occupies the southeast corner of Dolan Street and Kit Carson Road in Taos, on the same block as the Couse-Sharp Studios and a short walk from the historic plaza. The buildings grew by accretion across the early twentieth century around an older adobe residence that the painter Ernest Martin Hennings acquired in the 1920s and adapted for his use.

The district consists of a small residence, a separate studio, and several outbuildings, all built in the Pueblo Revival idiom that defined the Taos art colony. The walls are load-bearing adobe in the older sections and frame-with-stucco in the newer ones, finished throughout in earth-toned plaster. Projecting vigas, deep-set wooden window openings, low parapeted roofs, hand-adzed lintels, and a small enclosed courtyard tie the compound to the surrounding Ledoux and Kit Carson Road adobes. The studio is oriented to receive cool north light through enlarged window bays, the standard adaptation for painters in the colony.

E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956) was one of the second generation of Taos Society of Artists members, elected in 1924, and is remembered for his luminous figure compositions of Pueblo and Hispano subjects. He worked from the Dolan Street studio for more than three decades and was buried in Taos at his death.

The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 under reference 90001028 for its architectural and cultural significance. The buildings are privately owned and not regularly open to the public, although the exteriors are visible from the surrounding streets. The Hennings district extends the Taos art colony adobe corridor that runs through Ledoux Street, the Blumenschein House, the Couse-Sharp Studios, and the Kit Carson House, and that contains the densest cluster of artists' adobes in the United States.