Paul Warburg married Nina Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb in New York late in 1895, and Aby Warburg used the occasion to travel.
His long American journey took him to Colorado in winter, to New Mexico and then to Pasadena and Mount Lowe.
He met the San Francisco boheme Les Jeunes around Gelett Burgess and then went back to the Pueblos in spring, to the Hopi and Zuni.
Before going west, he had met veteran anthropologists James Mooney and Frank Hamilton Cushing at the Smithsonian Institution.
Cushing had lived for years with the Zuni in New Mexico and fascinated Warburg wanted to see the Pueblos for himself.

First stop in the west was Mesa Verde to see the Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings.
Then he went from Pueblo town to Spanish town, to Cochiti and the Palace Hotel in Santa Fe, to Albuquerque and Acoma, Laguna, and San Ildefonso, where he photographed an Antelope dance.
In Cochiti Warburg spoke to a priest and his son and received a cosmological drawing with a snake at its center.
The Hopi of Arizona were already famous for their snake dance and although April was too early in the year to see this tourist attraction, the time he spent with the Hopi was a most important part of his long journey.
Warburg was fascinated with their still secluded culture, their architecture, ritual, their masks and their ages-old abstract painting on pottery Nampeyo had recently revived.
Mennonite missionary Heinrich R. Voth shared his knowledge of Hopi religion.
Voth and Warburg saw a Hemis Kachina dance complete with obscene clowning.
Thanks to Voth he could also observe the preparations for this end-of-winter ceremony.
The most famous photo of the trip shows Warburg holding a half naked dancer resting.
Another snapshot is of Warburg wearing a Kachina dancer' s mask.
In New York the social life of the Schiffs and Loebs seemed empty and futile, and Warburg was very impressed with the dead seriousness of Hopi ritual.
Writing up his field notes for a now famous lecture at the Kreuzlingen sanatorium Warburg stressed the kinship of religious thinking in Athens and Oraibi.
Paul Warburg married Nina Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb in New York late in 1895, and Aby Warburg used the occasion to travel. His long American journey took him to Colorado in winter, to New Mexico and then to Pasadena and Mount Lowe. He met the San Francisco boheme Les Jeunes around Gelett Burgess and then went back to the Pueblos in spring, to the Hopi and Zuni. Before going west, he had met veteran anthropologists James Mooney and Frank Hamilton Cushing at the Smithsonian Institution. Cushing had lived for years with the Zuni in New Mexico and fascinated Warburg wanted to see the Pueblos for himself.
First stop in the west was Mesa Verde to see the Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings. Then he went from Pueblo town to Spanish town, to Cochiti and the Palace Hotel in Santa Fe, to Albuquerque and Acoma, Laguna, and San Ildefonso, where he photographed an Antelope dance. In Cochiti Warburg spoke to a priest and his son and received a cosmological drawing with a snake at its center. The Hopi of Arizona were already famous for their snake dance and although April was too early in the year to see this tourist attraction, the time he spent with the Hopi was a most important part of his long journey. Warburg was fascinated with their still secluded culture, their architecture, ritual, their masks and their ages-old abstract painting on pottery Nampeyo had recently revived. Mennonite missionary Heinrich R. Voth shared his knowledge of Hopi religion. Voth and Warburg saw a Hemis Kachina dance complete with obscene clowning. Thanks to Voth he could also observe the preparations for this end-of-winter ceremony. The most famous photo of the trip shows Warburg holding a half naked dancer resting. Another snapshot is of Warburg wearing a Kachina dancer' s mask. In New York the social life of the Schiffs and Loebs seemed empty and futile, and Warburg was very impressed with the dead seriousness of Hopi ritual. Writing up his field notes for a now famous lecture at the Kreuzlingen sanatorium Warburg stressed the kinship of religious thinking in Athens and Oraibi.
Aby Warburg