Untitled Fall Landscape with Aspens by Betty Sabo

This painting is a classic Southwestern landscape by the renowned New Mexico artist Betty Sabo (1928-2016). It depicts a serene autumn scene featuring shimmering golden aspens, deep evergreens, and a mountain stream — hallmarks of Sabo's celebrated regional works.   

Sabo was famous for her representational scenes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Taos, and northern New Mexico river valleys during seasonal transitions. Painted in oil on board, this composition showcases her impasto and layered brushwork, capturing the brilliant turn of autumn foliage against dark conifers and water reflecting sky light. The painting carries her signature Sabo © in red/orange paint at the lower corner, typical of her signed originals.  

Betty Jean Sabo was born in Kansas City, Missouri, She spent most of her life in New Mexico, becoming one of the state's most beloved realistic landscape painters and bronze sculptors. She majored in art at the University of New Mexico and studied for five years under the influential German-born landscape painter Carl Von Hassler, whose masterly treatment of light, shadow, and atmospheric tone strongly guided her technique.

Sabo was instrumental in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe art communities. In recognition of her artistic legacy, former New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez declared February 10, 2012, as "Betty Sabo Day."

The painting is framed in a striking, large silver/gold frame which is separated by a linen liner between the piece and the frame.

Condition: this Untitled Fall Landscape with Aspens by Betty Sabo is in very good condition

Provenance:

- Northwest Bank New Mexico. Corporate art collections in New Mexico — most notably Norwest Bank New Mexico (which became part of Wells Fargo following mergers in the late 1990s) — actively collected high-caliber Southwestern regional realism throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

- Institutional provenance from a major New Mexico financial collection provides strong verification of authenticity, indicating the piece was purchased directly from an established gallery or the artist's studio during her peak creative career.

Recommended Reading: Hanson, Carl A. Painters in the Valley — A Biographical Directory of Albuquerque, New Mexico Area Artists 1880-1990. Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, 2025

TAGS: Betty Jean Sabo, Albuquerque, Carl Von Hassler, sculpture, bronze, Paintings