A painting of a person in a red dress walks past a one-room church with a short steeple and cross, surrounded by an adobe-walled yard. The landscape features rolling red dirt hills with scattered vegetation, and a partly cloudy sky.

Paul Lantz

Untitled (Church in the Rio Grande Valley)

About late 1930s

Oil on canvas

40” W x 26” H

About this artwork

Notice the play of form and texture in Untitled (Church in the Rio Grande Valley). Three different cloud formations—billowing cumulus, popcorn stratus, and wispy cirrus—fill the sky. Immediately below, the horizon consists of a peaked hill of weather-worn red rocks and dirt , against which the pitched roof and steeple of a clean-lined, uniformly built church is set. The precise geometry of the church building contrasts with the undulating curves of its thick adobe courtyard wall. In the lower right corner, the bristly branches of a green bush poke through a pile of sharp-edged, glinting rocks—which look recently placed—interrupting the otherwise smooth, elongated brushstrokes of the foreground.

The painting evokes tensions between human-made and natural, new and ancient, and the lone figure seems caught in the middle. Literally, she is mid-step, her torso turned one way and her head the other. Figuratively, in the way she is moving forward while also looking backward, she may be a reflection of the artist’s creative mindset. In the 1930s, Lantz was part of a group of modernist New Mexican artists seeking “freedom from inhibitions”1 and tradition in art.

Audio description for individuals with low vision. Audio descriptions produced by Art Beyond Sight.

Audio description

This is an untitled painting by artist Paul Lantz, depicting a New Mexican church. The work is 40 inches wide and 26 inches high, painted with oil on canvas.  For more about this painting style and the history of this painting, read the “About the Artwork” section above.

The painting shows a small church in what we know is the Rio Grande river valley of New Mexico. It sits at the base of two large hills, both brownish red and dotted with green trees or shrubs. Above the hills is a blue sky filled with three different white cloud formations—billowing cumulus and popcorn-shaped stratus clouds directly behind the hills, and wispy cirrus painted with sweeping brush strokes flowing above.

The rectangle-shaped church has brown walls, a white rectangular door, a square dormer window above the entrance, a gray pitched roof, and a short steeple with a cross on top. The white door of the church opens into a courtyard enclosed by a brown adobe wall and brown wood door. The straight lines and square corners of the church building contrast with the soft, undulating curves of the adobe wall. On either side of the church building are unconnected sections of wooden post and rail fencing that are falling apart in places, appearing older than the church which looks newly built.

The ground in the foreground of the painting in front of the church is smooth, brown earth, with small patches of green grass and the occasional shrub. In the lower right corner, bristly branches of a green bush poke up through a pile of sharp-edged, glinting light brown rocks.

In the foreground a lone woman walks across the painting from right to left on a dirt road in front of the church. She wears a red, short-sleeved shift and she is in mid-step. Her torso is turned toward the left and she walks forward, while her head turns back in the direction of the church behind her.

See this artwork in a different light

More artworks by this artist

We are always open to learning more about our collections and updating this website. Does this entry contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we could improve or change? Click here to let us know.

Copyright © 2025 gallupARTS

What are you looking for?

Art Collection

Gallup’s New Deal art collection consists of over 120 objects created, purchased, or donated from 1933 to 1942 through New Deal federal art programs administered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support artists during the Great Depression.

Main Menu

Image Use Notice: Images of Gallup’s New Deal artworks are available to be used for educational purposes only. Non-collection images are subject to specific restrictions and identified by a © icon. Hover over the icon for copyright info. Read more