Maynard Dixon, Snake Kiva-Orabi, native american art, historical art, southwest art

Maynard Dixon (1875 - 1946)

Snake Kiva-Oraibi, 1902

pastel on paper

11 x 8 inches

Retail Price $ 25,000

Holiday Sale $ 17,500

 

In 1902 Dixon accepted a commission for illustration work from the Santa Fe Railroad.  In addition to being a source of income, it was an opportunity to retun to AZ, with which he had become enthralled on his first trip there in 1900.  He accompanied photographer Frederick I. Monson in Los Angeles on his assignment to photograph the Hopi on their remote mesas.  

 

It was, and remains, extremely rare for Anglos to be invited to reside with and observe the Hopi.  Dixon spent considerable time in Hopi country, including a 1923 trip in which he convalesced for four months, living with Namoki, one of the snake priests, and his blind brother, Loma Himma.  Dixon earned the trust of his Native American acquaintances and subjects through the years through showing them respect and displaying a genuine interest in their beliefs, practices, and cultures.  Even though he worked an an illustrator of western subjects, he had disdain for romanticized, condescending depictions of all westerners.  Here he has created an honest and admiring imaged of the Hopi village adobe architecture and ceremonial structure of the kiva.

LeConte Stewart, Utah landscape artist, Utah artist

LeConte Stewart (1891 - 1990)

CARDSTON CANADA
OCT 6 A.M. 1920

Oil on paperboard

6.75 X 8.5 Inches

Retail Price $ 20,000

Holiday Sale $ 15,000

 

 

On the bottom edge of this painting LeConte Stewart recorded that it was created on October 6 sometime in the “A.M.” By this date, in Alberta, Canada, the sun does not rise until around 7:30, which might not have given the observant painter much time to locate and record this nondescript, yet remarkable set of trees before noon. 

Autumn Morning was made during an important period in the artist’s career. Stewart was in Alberta on assignment; his primary task was to paint the murals in the Cardston Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With the help of this commission, his career was on its ascendency. He would soon begin teaching, first at Ogden High School and later at the University of Utah, where he would influence a generation of Utah artists. During this time, he would also hone his craft and become one of the leading landscape painters in the American tradition.

This painting is also an early example of the primary characteristics of Stewart’s best work. Throughout his career, he tried to avoid the sentimental; he wanted, as Wallace Stegner observed, to avoid all “prettification.”[1] Furthermore, he disliked verdant scenes and generally selected nondescript subjects for his paintings. He chose to paint outdoors from “late fall to early spring” during seasons most fair-weather painters tried to avoid.[2] Mud, winter’s chill, and snowy roads were not deterrents for Stewart.

On this Wednesday, probably before working on the temple murals in the afternoon, Stewart captured a scene in which the brilliant colors of fall were already muted, and the browning leaves were nearly ready to fall. This aligns with the artist’s aesthetic. “I would rather paint the cool violet and the somber gray ashes of late autumn and winter than the brilliant red and orange fires of fall,” he asserted.[3] Elsewhere Stewart explained, “I am trying to cut a slice of contemporary life as it is in the highways and byways, as I have found it…I cannot ignore the call of life in the raw.”[4] Thus, what really made art great, he argued, was its ability to capture “a time of day, or a season of year, as well as a place.”[5] This is exactly what Stewart did on a chilly October morning in Canada.

 

-Dr. James R. Swensen, Professor of Art History and the History of Photography, Brigham Young University.

 

[1] Wallace Stegner, “The Power of Homely Detail,” American Heritage 36, no. 5 (August/September 1985): 64.

[2] Gregory C. Thompson, “Sketches from Life: LeConte Stewart,” American Artist 49 (November 1985): 114.

[3] Stewart, quoted in Stegner, 69.

[4] Stewart, quoted in Robert S. Olpin, Dictionary of Utah Art (Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Art Center, 1980), 241.

[5] LeConte Stewart, Untitled document, LeConte Stewart Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hiroshi Yoshida, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, western art, woodblock print

Hirisho Yoshida (1876 - 1950)

Grand Canyon, The United States Series, First Edition - Earliest State, 1925

11.5 x 16.25 inches

Japanese woodblock print

Publisher: artist

Color earliest "red"

Signature:

Jizurk seal in upper left margin

brush signed & sealed by the artist

pencil titled & signed in the bottom margin

Retail Price $ 12,500

Holiday Sale $ 11,000

 

A romantic realist, Yoshida’s style resembles that of an English 19th Century watercolorist applied to Japanese themes.   Yoshida is noted for subtle colors and naturalistic atmosphere.  This stunning print captures the stark contrasts of light and shadow, red rock and white snow of the Grand Canyon in winter solitude.

Maynard Dixon,

Maynard Dixon (1875 - 1946)

Bear and Bull Fight, 1926

Gouache on Paper

15 x 10 inches

Retail Price $ 28,000

Holiday Sale $25,000

 

Commission for the University of California (CAL) Yearbook  

Signed and dated lower left

Maynard Dixon

Maynard Dixon (1875 - 1946)

Wolf Dancer, 1926

Gouache on Paper

15 x 10 inches

Retail Price $ 28,000

Holiday Sale $ 25,000

 

Commission for the University of California (CAL) Yearbook  

Signed and dated lower left

William Wendt, California painter, landscape

William Wendt (1865 - 1946)

untitled (canyon landscape)

Oil on canvas

25 x 30 inches

Retail Price $ 55,000

Holiday Sale $ 35,000

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

untitled, 1974

acrylic on canvas

55h x 44w inches

Retail Price $15,000

Holiday Sale $12,000

Don Olsen (1910-1983)

Enigma Variation, 1976

acrylic on canvas

72h x 60w inches

Retail Price $20,000

Holiday Sale $18,000

Donald Olsen

Don Olsen (1910 - 1983)

unititled (Ink & Collage series)

ink and collage

20.25 x 27.25 inches

Retail Price $ 7,000

Holiday Sale $ 6,000

Lee Deffebach, utah artist

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

Pacific Heights,1982

Watercolor

9h x 12w inches

Retail Price $ 2,500

Holiday Sale $ 2,000

V. Douglas Snow (1927 - 2009)

untitled, 1982

Oil on canvas

36h x 48 inches

Retail Price $12,500

Holiay Sale $11,000

Utah Artist, Doug Snow, italy

V. Douglas Snow (1927 - 2009)

Venetian Wall, 1986

Oil on canvas

40 x 60 inches

Retail Price $ 15,000

Holiday Sale $ 12,500

 

Lee Deffebach, Utah artist

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

Two Chimneys at Tuscarora, 1986

Oil on canvas

7.50 x 9.50 inches

Retail Price $ 2,000

Holiday Sale $ 1,500

Doug Snow, Utah Artist,

V. Douglas Snow (1927 - 2009)

Respuesta, 1989

Oil on canvas

36 x 40 inches

Retail Price $ 12,500

Holiday Sale $ 11,000

Lee Deffebach, utah artist, modern art

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

A Visit to Moab, 1989

monotype

6 x 6 inches (site)

Retail Price $ 900

Holiday Sale $800

Lee Deffebach, Utah artist

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

Art Song, 1994

found metal

11.50 x 8 inches

Retail Price $ 450

Holiday Sale $ 400

Doug Snow, utah artist, landscape

V. Douglas Snow (1927 - 2009)

Cloud Webs, 3/31/1995

Oil on canvas

48 x 84 inches

Retail Price $ 22.000

Holiday Sale $ 19,000

Defffebach, found wood sculpture, utah artist

Lee Deffebach (1928-2005)

untitled, 2000

wood

7.5 x 5.25 inches

Retail Price $200

Holiday Sale $150