Maynard Dixon (1875 - 1946)
Butte at Red Lake, Ariz, 1927
Oil on board
16 x 19.75 inches
Signed, title, and dated "Maynard Dixon / Red Lake, Ariz. Sept. 192?" (lower left)
and signed and titled (on the reverse) "Butte at Red Lake (Navajo Res. Ariz) / Maynard Dixon / 728 Montgomery St. / San Francisco
Arizona had particular importance to Maynard Dixon. He traveled there frequently, attempting to record the state's "...unbeaten mountains and unfathomable blue above." "Red Lake, Ariz." typifies Dixon's late 1920s and early 1930s paintings of Arizona, portraying an expanse with no particular focal point; the broad, almost limitless space becoming a place for the viewer to project both fears and hopes. The mesas in the distance were sacred to the Native Americans and unknowable, perhaps, but their depiction here suggests Dixon's use of "dynamic symmetry," a mathematical approach to organizing and creating compositions that became popular in the early 20th century. In the final analysis, "Red Lake, Ariz." is a manifestation of what art historian Linda Gibbs calls Dixon's emotional absorption into the spaciousness of the land.
Dixon's poem "The Homeland" captures this sentiment:
The mightly West looms vast before my eyes
Wide & far & facing to the sun;-
Mesa & plain, the desert & the sown,
The endless blue, & soring angel-clouds;
And in its farthest rim I see my sould
Arise, bread-winged & free, & bec[k] me."
Maynard Dixon was an American painter, muralist and illustrator who was born on a ranch near Fresno, California. Frail health restricted his childhood amusements to sketching trips with his pony, reading and listening to the local old-timers’ tales of the early West. By the time he was sixteen, he had sufficient confidence in his work to send his sketchbook to Frederic Remington, his illustrator hero, who replied with two encouraging letters. At eighteen, spurred on by the encouragement and advice of Remington, he enrolled in the San Francisco School of Design and enjoyed a career as a successful illustrator before turning to painting full-time. Through a lifetime of extensive trips through the West and the insights they produced, he evolved a mastery of his material and a highly distinctive style— the architectural structuring of bold masses combined with dynamic composition and vibrant coloring.
Frank Applegate (1881 - 1993)
Spring at Chimayo, N.M.
11.5 x 17.25 inches
watercolor
signed lower right
Frank Applegate, like many of his colleagues in the newly formed New Mexico Painters group, was informed by the modernism sweeping America. He focused on geometric elements in nature, emphasizing them in his designs and employing them to convey emotion. In this powerful scene, Applegate uses broad and vivid strokes to draw our attention to the dramatic clouds over the mountains. Meanwhile, light filters through to illuminate the bucolic scene on the valley floor.
Born in Atlanta, Illinois, Frank Applegate was an art teacher and accomplished sculptor and painter, portraying the people and landscapes of New Mexico. Applegate studied with Frank Forrest Frederick at the University of Illinois in 1906, and with Charles Grafly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he also exhibited watercolors. He later trained in Paris at the Julian Academy under Charles Verlet.
From 1908 to 1920, Applegate taught and directed the department of sculpture, modeling and ceramics at the Trenton, New Jersey Industrial Art School. He first travelled to New Mexico in 1921 when he took his family to see the famous Santa Fe Fiesta. He was so taken with the landscape and culture that he moved there and immersed himself in Indian culture, later becoming an adviser regarding Indian affairs. He asserted that Indian art and crafts should be treated as works of art. Many of his paintings depict and record Indian life.
He lived on Camino del Monte Sol among a line of pueblo huts inhabited by other artists who called themselves "Los Cinto Pintores." Other members of that group were Fremont Ellis, Will Shuster, Walter Mruk, Josef Bakos, and Willard Nash. He was an exhibiting member of the New Mexico Painters Society, and in 1929, wrote and illustrated Indian Stories from the Pueblos, depicting subject matter with which he was familiar from working closely with the Hopi Indians of Arizona.
Source:
Peggy and Harold Samuels, "The Illustratred Encyclopedia of the American West
Doris Dawdy, Artists of the American West
Gustave Baumann (1881 - 1971)
Hopi Katzinas, 1925
Color woodblock print, 38/120, First Printing
12.25 x 13.25 inches
Signed in pencil and titled with artist's hand-in-heart ink stamp
"From his first years in New Mexico, Baumann was interested in traditional Pueblo and Hopi dolls and figurines, whose craftsmanship and childish delight combined with deep cultural significance in ways the artist found enchanting. He collected them avidly and became knowledgeable about their forms, decorations, and meanings. Among those he collected were the popular Kachina dolls, the representations of deified ancestral spirits (also called Kachinas) the Hopis believe periodically visit and effect our world. In Hopi rituals conceived to summon these spirits encourage their intercession - particularly for beneficial weather and bountiful hunts and harvest - dancers impersonate the Kachinas with vivid symbolic costumes and by performing specific dance steps. Traditionally during these ceremonies Kachina dolls are presented to the children. Carved from cottonwood roots to the children. Carved from cottonwood roots or branches, the dolls are gaily painted and decorated with buckskin, horsehair, and feathers.
The first woodcut representing Baumann's budding doll collection was Strangers from Hopi Land created around 1920. Judging from the number of times he submitted it for exhibition, he was proud of this print. A more ambitious piece, Hopi Katzina suggests how extensive the artist's collection of dolls had become by about 1925, and how the artist delighted in their every detail. The composition is simple and uncluttered, so as not to detract from the dolls' splendid ornamentation. The technical complexity of this print is outstanding, with its myriad colors and intricate designs. This woodcut precisely reproduces the artist's oil painting, now at the Museum of New Mexico, which is titled on the canvas "Pasatiempo." Like the artists of Santa Fe who organized and celebrated the annual Pasatiempo fiesta, Baumann's Kachinas assemble for their own festival, circling around to watch the performance of a troupe of acrobats. The gather dolls seem to come alive, interacting with each other, taking on human characteristics, and appearing to express their delight in the performance. A childlike tendency to humanize these playthings is common in Baumann's prints of dolls and toys and reflects something of the artist's character. "
Source: Guatave Baumann Nearer to Art
Albert Looking Elk (1888 - 1940)
untitled (Taos pueblo evening snow scene)
Oil on board
7 x 10 inches
Signed lower right
As discussed below, Albert Looking Elk made the Taos Pueblo his primary subject. This rare wintertime depiction of the Pueblo shows the artist's interest in broadening his palette.
Albert Martinez, better known as Albert Looking Elk, entered the art world as a model when he was around twelve years old, and then as an adult, sold his own paintings to tourists. At first reluctantly posing for Irving Couse, a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA), Martinez went on to make a career modeling for artists. Later, his wife and children would also work as artist models. Looking Elk took his first and only art lessons from Oscar Berninghaus, another TSA founder. By 1917, if not earlier, Berninghaus set up Looking Elk with his first basic painting equipment including oils, easel, brushes, and canvas. He also received attention from the Taos Valley News in the July 16, 1918 edition: "Taos has a native artist...Albert Martinez of the Pueblo...He has painted a number of pictures of merit, several of which he has been able to sell at a fair price."
The "fair price" was seldom more than a few dollars, but his success at selling was such that he was said to be the first tribal member at Taos Pueblo to purchase an automobile -- a Studebaker. Looking Elk received more recognition than the other artists of that time, occasionally showing his paintings between 1923 and 1930 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, winning a special art award during his first group. Perhaps he earned this recognition because he sometimes painted in the style of the Santa Fe Indian School.
His primary work however, like that of Albert Lujan and Juan Mirabal, depicted scenes of the Pueblo itself. Although he sold paintings from his house in the Village, like Lujan he also painted on the Village plaza where tourists could find him. He often painted near his house on the south side but many of his compositions feature the north building. Also, like Lujan, he painted prosaic, non-romanticized scenes of the Pueblo, in contrast to the often sentimentalized images created by the TSA artists. Looking Elk painted, however, with more atmospheric light and color than Lujan, giving his work much appeal to tourists and apparently commanding a higher price.
Sources:
(Traditional Fine Arts On Line) on March 12, 2003 with permission of the Harwood Museum of Art. The essay was earlier published in a 16-page illustrated catalogue titled Three Taos Pueblo Painters in connection with an exhibition of the same name held at the Harwood Museum January 24 through April 20, 2003.
Paul and Kathleen Nickens, Pueblo Indians of New Mexico
signed lower right
Albert Looking Elk (1888 - 1940)
Untitled (view of Taos pueblo)
oil on board
7 x 10 Inches
signed lower right
Albert Martinez, better known as Albert Looking Elk, entered the art world as a model when he was around twelve years old, and then as an adult, sold his own paintings to tourists. At first reluctantly posing for Irving Couse, a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA), Martinez went on to make a career modeling for artists. Later, his wife and children would also work as artist models. Looking Elk took his first and only art lessons from Oscar Berninghaus, another TSA founder. By 1917, if not earlier, Berninghaus set up Looking Elk with his first basic painting equipment including oils, easel, brushes, and canvas. He also received attention from the Taos Valley News in the July 16, 1918 edition: "Taos has a native artist...Albert Martinez of the Pueblo...He has painted a number of pictures of merit, several of which he has been able to sell at a fair price."
The "fair price" was seldom more than a few dollars, but his success at selling was such that he was said to be the first tribal member at Taos Pueblo to purchase an automobile -- a Studebaker. Looking Elk received more recognition than the other artists of that time, occasionally showing his paintings between 1923 and 1930 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, winning a special art award during his first group. Perhaps he earned this recognition because he sometimes painted in the style of the Santa Fe Indian School.
His primary work however, like that of Albert Lujan and Juan Mirabal, depicted scenes of the Pueblo itself. Although he sold paintings from his house in the Village, like Lujan he also painted on the Village plaza where tourists could find him. He often painted near his house on the south side but many of his compositions feature the north building. Also, like Lujan, he painted prosaic, non-romanticized scenes of the Pueblo, in contrast to the often sentimentalized images created by the TSA artists. Looking Elk painted, however, with more atmospheric light and color than Lujan, giving his work much appeal to tourists and apparently commanding a higher price.
Sources:
(Traditional Fine Arts On Line) on March 12, 2003 with permission of the Harwood Museum of Art. The essay was earlier published in a 16-page illustrated catalogue titled Three Taos Pueblo Painters in connection with an exhibition of the same name held at the Harwood Museum January 24 through April 20, 2003.
Paul and Kathleen Nickens, Pueblo Indians of New Mexico
Fritz Scholder (1937 - 2005)
Snake Dancer, 1979
color lithograph, 81/150
30 x 22 inches
Born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, Fritz Scholder became a prolific painter, sculptor, lithographer, teacher, mentor and bookmaker of Native American art in Arizona. Scholder's paternal grandmother was a member of the Luiseño tribe of Mission Native American. He studied with Wayne Thiebaud at Sacramento College in California. He earned an MFA Degree from the University of Arizona.
In his work, he frequently showed the harsh, realistic side of Native Americans' lives and deaths, but some of his depictions are humorous such as Indians on horseback carrying umbrellas. His brush-work is generally swift, and the tone often sombre and surreal. A major influence on his work was the contemporary British artist, Francis Bacon, from whom Scholder adapted ironic distortions into his canvases.
Scholder says "...it is my intention not only to set up graphically a new visual experience for the viewer, but also to make a statement in regard to the society and land in which we, the descendants of the American Indian, live. I am well aware that my paintings are not literal, for to me some ideas require unique statements. I try to capture not only the physical, but the inner and even spiritual."
Selected Collections:
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Hirschhorn Museum of Fine Arts, Washington,D.C.
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institute
Boston Fine Arts Museum
Source: AskArt Archives
Doug Snow (1927 - 2009)
Havasu Cliffs, c. 1960"s
oil on canvas
32 x 42 inches
Doug Snow developed a style influenced by Abstract Expressionism while a student at Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts. When he began teaching at the University of Utah in the 1950s, he overlapped with realist / impressionist painter LeConte Stewart. According to art historian Will South, Snow was suspicious of both pure realism and straight abstractionism. In the Utah deserts he found the perfect subject matter for his need to express abstract emotions through increasingly realistic landscape features. He wrote that,
Often I think that my paintings are really bits of nature, bits of fantasy, bits of imaginative groping, all thrown together in relationships that somehow get me moving, excite me, and then I verify those abstractions from nature by my awareness of natural phenomena. So I will, in a sense, “paint falsely,” as Degas said, and add the accent of nature---literally, I authenticate my paintings by my awareness of what really happens in nature.
Although undated, Havasu Cliffs resembles in color and form Snow’s paintings from the 1960s and 1970s.
Linda Tafoya (1962-)
Santa Clara Carved Blackware Jar, 1985
Clay
10.5 x 8 inches
Signed on base
Linda Tafoya is the granddaughter of Santa Clara Pueblo pottery matriarch Margaret Tafoya, and the daughter of Lee and Betty Tafoya. She began making pottery at age 12, with her father teaching her to make the vessels and carve the designs, and her mother teaching her how to sand and carve the vessels. She learned how to manipulate the firing process to create a deep, black color, and uses family heirloom stones to perfect the polishing effect. Although she has received many accolades, Linda is most proud of praise she once received from her renowned potter grandmother Margaret Tafoya: "You do good pots."
Sherry Tafoya (1956 - )
Santa Clara Carved Blackware, 1985
Clay
9.5 x 9 inches
Signed on base
Born in Santa Clara Pueblo in 1956, Sherry Tafoya is the daughter of potter Mida Tafoya, a grand-daughter of Christina Naranjo, and a great-grand-daughter of Serafina Tafoya. She carries on the family artistic and stylistic tradition with sharply incised black and redware.
Incised black and redware pottery is one of the most recognized and celebrated styles of puebloan pottery. It emerged as a signature method of manufacture and design within the Santa Clara Pueblo, though its origins can be traced to the Ancestral Puebloan people whose pottery-making traditions can be traced back thousands of years.
Contemporary potters such as Sherry Tafoya follow the traditional hand-coil method of rolling wet clay into snakes and coiling the snakes on top of each other. As the coils piled up, they are pinched together, then scraped on the inside and out to smooth the surfaces and remove extra clay. Decoration is applied by brushing darker or lighter colors - red, black, and white over the surface. The carving of the decoration takes place before firing in a wood-burning kiln structure.
Sherry Tafoya's work is characterized by deliberate and shaply formed carved edges, yielding especially crisp designs. Her pottery is illustrated on page 233 of the book "Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery."
Hiroshi Yoshida (1876 - 1950)
Grand Canyon, 1925
10 1/4 x 15 5/8 inches
woodblock print
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.
Hiroshi Yoshida is known as a Western-style painter and printmaker. Born in Kurume, Japane, he lived and worked in Tokyo. He first painted landscapes in oil, but earned early fame as a watercolorist. He developed an interest in printmaking in 1920 and self-printed all of his work excepting his first seven prints. His early printwork depicted views of Swiss and American landscapes.
Fond of traveling, Yoshida was also an avid alpinst, with mountains and water figuring prominently in his works. A significant contributor to and organizer of important exhibitions at the Toledo Museum of Art, Yoshida’s work was well represented, with 113 prints in a 1930 Japanese print exhibition, and 66 prints in a 1936 show. A romantic realist, Yoshida’s style resembles that of an English 19th Century watercolorist applied to Japanese themes. Hiroshi Yoshia is noted for subtle colors and naturalistic atmosphere. His works won numberous prizes in Japan and in the world, gaining strong Western influences during his travels. He later established the Japan Alpine Artist Association.
Source: Castle Fine Arts, www.castlefinearts.com
