Blumenschein was a student of painting at the Academie Julian in Paris when he met Joseph Sharp and Bert Phillips in 1895. On the advice of Sharp, who had already been to New Mexico, Blumenschein and Phillips made a sketching trip to Taos in 1898 where Blumenschein settled permanently in 1919.

I am wildly enthusiastic over my surroundings. Everything about me is inspiring me to work. Great mountain ranges that become as clear to one as a friend, landscapes, big and beautiful, deserts reflecting a vast sky, and you feel you are a part of it all and are never alone.

Ernest L. Blumenschein, letter, 1901