Rolshoven said, "I have traveled all over Europe and Northern Africa in search of atmosphere

 but nowhere else have I seen nature provide everything, even the conception, as it does in New Mexico." (Jan. 20, 1918)

Julius Rolshoven was active and lived in New Mexico, Michigan and Europe.

He is known for portrait, figure, genre and landscape painting.

"Rolshoven, too, was endowed by nature with the artistic temperament,

making it especially difficult for him to adapt himself to routine work" - Heermann

He was extremely talented with the medium of pastels,

and these comprise some of his most powerful and beautiful works of Taos and Santa Fe.

He is acknowledged to be one of the most talented of the Taos Society of Artists.

He was missing from the famous portrait of the Taos Artists, or he would be much better known.

He was born on 28 October 1858 in Detroit.

He was active and lived in New Mexico, Michigan and Europe.

Rolshoven is known for his portrait, figure, genre and landscape painting.

As the son of a German jeweler he acquired designing skills while working for his father.

And then, the art works he viewed at the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition fired his imagination.

He studied at Cooper Union Academy in New York in 1877 and with Ernst Plassman, after he was rejected by the National Academy of Design in 1876.

In 1878, he was a student at the Academie of Dusseldorf and the Royal Academy of Munich with Frank Duveneck  Ludwig von Löfftz, and under Hugo Crola.

He was one of the "Duveneck Boys, " which included John W. Alexander,  J. Frank Currier, John H. Twachtman, Ross Turner and Harper Pennington.

He went on to study with Adolphe Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury at Académie Julian in 1882.

He stayed there as a teacher for 6 years.

His works were shown at Paris in the National Academy for 1885 and 1889.

At the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889,  he was awarded a second-class silver medal.

He started teaching Art in Paris in 1890,  then he taught in London in 1896.

He relocated to London in 1896, and Rolshoven's wife (Anna Chickering of the piano manufacturing family)

died the next year.

In 1899 he won the second medal of the Paris Exhibition.

He won an Honorable Mention for “My Great-grandmother's Finery” at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.

He won a bronze medal at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, in 1901.

A silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.

He won medals from Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Florence and Chicago.

In 1910 he moved to Northern Africa and created a series of Tunisian paintings.

He showed an an Italian scene at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.

He and his second wife, Harriette Haynes Blazo, moved to Santa Fe in 1916 where they honeymooned.

Rolshoven was elected to the Taos Society of Artists in 1917, before Victor Higgins, Walter Ufer, Ernest Hennings and Kenneth Adams.  His early election was a sign of his extreme talent.

His artistic ability was immediately recognized as equal or superior to the other members.

Rolshoven became an associate member of the Taos Society of Artists 1917 and an active (Full) member in 1918.

He was the senior member of the Taos Society of Artists, being one year older than JH Sharp.

Because he was absent from the famous historic photo of the Taos Society of Artists, he is not as well known.

He showed an exhibition of his New Mexico paintings at Detroit in 1923.

In 1924 he won the Richard S. Greenberg memorial prize of the Newport, Rhode Island Art Association.

He was a member of the National Academy of Design and in the National Arts Club, New York.

Memberships also included the Secession, Munich; the Society of Arts and Letters, Paris;

the Foreign Arts Club and the Bene Merensa Society di Belle Arti, Florence;

the International Fine Arts Congress; the Detroit Fine Arts Society; and, of course, The Taos Society of Artists.

He was elected to Associate Academician of the National Academy in New York in 1926.

Rolshoven created a studio in Santa Fe at the Palace of the Governors.  He often painted under a white open tent, 

because of the intensity of the high desert light.

Rolshoven’s time in Taos was short, from 1916 to 1920.

He died December 7, 1930, in New York City while traveling to see his mother in Detroit.

He died in 1930 on an ocean voyage to see his 92 year old mother for Christmas. She died that same day as well.

His works are now scarce, very difficult to find and rarely available for sale.

Detroit Historical Museum

Detroit Institute of Arts

El Paso Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Museum of The Southwest

National Portrait Gallery

New Mexico Museum of Art

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

San Diego Museum of Art

The Brooklyn Museum of Art

The Newark Museum

The Smithsonian Institution

The University of New Mexico

Union League Club of Chicago

Watson Gallery, Wheaton College

"Florentine Boys" (1884)

"Hall in the Doge's Palace, Venice" (ca. 1888

"A Spanish Dancer" 

"My Great-grandmother's Finery"

"From Tuscan Wanderings"

"Tunisian Bedouins"

"Donna Tosca"

Centennial Exposition 1876, Philadelphia

Louisiana Purchase Expo, St. Louis World's Fair 1904

National Academy of Design, New York

Panama Pacific Exhibition of 1915

Society of Independent Artists

World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1892-1893

The Salon and the Sociate Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris

The Munich Secession

Chelsea Art Club, London

National Academy of Design and in the National Arts Club, New York

The Secession, Munich 

The International Fine Arts Congress;

The Taos Society of Artists

The Detroit Fine Arts Society

The Society of Arts and Letters, Paris

The Foreign Arts Club

The  Bene Merensa Societa di Belle Arti, Florence

In 1899,  the second medal of the Paris Exhibition.

In 1900, an Honorable Mention for “My Great-grandmother's Finery” at the Exposition Universelle 

In 1901,  a bronze medal at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo

In 1904,  a silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition.

He won medals from Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Florence and Chicago.

In 1924,  the Richard S. Greenough memorial prize of the Newport, Rhode Island, Art Association