MAURICE BURNS

MAURICE BURNS
April 6, 1937 - November 8, 2025
The Spirit of Cool: Remembering
Santa Fe's Own Maurice "Mobu" Burns
Santa Fe lost one of its brightest colors-and a fair bit of its cool-with the passing of the extraordinarily talented Maurice "Mobu" Burns (April 6, 1937 – November 8, 2025): visionary painter, jazz philosopher, and unrepentant original. A MacDowell Fellow and Pollock-Krasner award recipient, Maurice remixed the worlds of the Harlem Renaissance, Pop Art, and the School of London into a rhythm all his own. He painted beyond boundaries, creating canvases where jazz met geometry and Einstein might wear a headdress.
Born in segregated Talladega, Alabama, and shaped by roots spanning Africa, Scotland, and the Choctaw Nation, Maurice learned early how to live between worlds-and later, how to paint them into one. Though he started out crunching numbers in computer science, in his late twenties he traded algorithms for oil paint and never looked back. The GI Bill took him to the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied under sculptor John Torres and met the celebrated artist Jacob Lawrence, who told him, "You are born Black, and whatever comes out of you will be a reflection of that." Maurice took that advice and ran with it-through pop culture, jazz clubs, and the ghosts of history-remixing it all into something dazzlingly his own.
After earning his B.F.A. at RISD and his master's degree at the Royal College of Art in London, he moved to Santa Fe. There, he helped establish a crucial program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in conjunction with RISD, allowing Indigenous students to earn college credits for their work after a two-year course of study. In Santa Fe, he became an integral part of a group of local artists including T.C. Cannon and Fritz Scholder, among others.
Maurice didn't just make art; he made meaning-and sometimes, mischief. He was known to say that the only thing more dangerous than an idea was a blank canvas, and he treated both with equal respect. For forty years in his Santa Fe studio, he chased beauty, complexity, and truth, usually with Coltrane playing in the background.
Maurice didn't just paint; he rewrote the rules. The man, the myth, the math: forever cool, forever original. Santa Fe will never be quite as hip without him.
Maurice passed away surrounded by family, friends, and his art. He was preceded in death by his parents, Maurice and Ruby Burns, and his daughter, Angie Daniels. He is survived by his daughters Marcia Blanchett, Veva Burns, Mara Burns, and Mariah Welch; his grandchildren Maurcelia, Darrell, Jesse, Liam, Quincy, and Murphy; and by everyone who called him "brother Maurice."