In 1934, Lumpkins graduated from USC, and began work for the WPA. Following WWII, Lumpkins lived and worked as an architect and painter in La Jolla before returning to Santa Fe in 1967. Producing drawings for numerous homes in California and the Southwest, he published at least two books on adobe and pueblo homes.
Artist and architect William Lumpkins was born at the Rabbit Ears Ranch near Clayton, New Mexico, in 1909 the son of a pioneer family. When his family relocated to the Roswell area, he met two men who would become mentors to him: artist Peter Hurd and writer Paul Horgan. In 1929, Lumpkins took painting classes from artist Neil Hogner and architect Irwin Parsons at the University of New Mexico alongside other young modern artists, including Cady Wells and Andrew Dasburg.
In 1934, Lumpkins received his degree in architecture from USC, and began work as a junior architect for the Works Progress Administration. Upon his return to Santa Fe in 1938 he befriended many of the early New Mexico modernists – including Jozef Bakos, Willard Nash, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, Raymond Jonson - a group later to be considered the American heirs to “Russian Constructivism, Futurism, and the Bauhaus”.
After World War II, Lumpkins lived and worked as an architect and painter in La Jolla before returning with his wife and children to Santa Fe in 1967. Producing drawings for numerous homes in California and the Southwest, he published Modern Spanish Pueblo Homes in 1946, a book that established his leadership in this field of design. Over the next decade, he continued to explore adobe as a form and as a material - his 1961 book La Casa Adobe became the noted book on the subject. In this publication and subsequent work in Pueblo-based architecture, one of Lumpkins’ efforts was to articulate in his designs the internal planning of residences to the needs of modern living while maintaining the elements and concepts of Pueblo design.
Athenaeum (1956)
1008 Wall Street
Black, William and Ruth Residence (1949-52)
9630 La Jolla Farms Road
Now UC San Diego Geisel House/Chancellor's Residence
Lumpkins, William Residence (1955-56)
1723 Castellana Road
Lumpkins Office
7723 Fay Avenue
Private Residence (1960)
8931 Nottingham Place Residence
Private Residence (1964)
1020 La Jolla Rancho Road
Private Residence (1960)
8519 Boulder Drive, La Mesa
Rights, Dr. Clyde S. and Charlene Residence (1962)
5780 Rutgers Road, La Jolla
Stuart Resor remodeled the home in 1973, followed by a Hal Sadler remodel (1968)
Talbot, John Residence (ca. 1957)
1738 Castellana, La Jolla
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