Foreword

Alan Petersen, Curator of Fine Arts Museum of Northern Arizona

One of history’s great masters of painting en plein air was Gunnar Widforss. He worked outdoors his whole career, during all seasons and all types of weather. Widforss loved the immediacy of his subject and the interaction with the weather, atmosphere, and elements of nature. He liked painting snow scenes outdoors in the middle of winter. Only if forced to, would he work indoors. In a letter written from Grand Canyon to a friend, he said that it was “much better to be outdoors in the midst of the scene.”

Widforss lived primarily at the South Rim from 1926 until his death there in 1934. Unlike his contemporaries who painted at Grand Canyon, Widforss regularly made adventurous hikes in the canyon to capture subjects that very few other artists did. The invention of tin paint tubes by painter John Goffe Rand in 1841 made plein air painting much more practical for a greater number of artists. The tubes of color made it far easier to travel with oil and watercolor paints, leading to a boom in outdoor painting in the mid-nineteenth century. Remarkably, the majority of Widforss’ painting kit would have fit in a cigar box.

Known as “The Painter of the National Parks,” Widforss especially liked to visit Phantom Ranch during the winter and in 1932 spent eight weeks at the inner canyon sanctuary. Ranch manager Ron Moore’s moonshine whiskey was an additional attraction. It’s safe to say that Widforss did more paintings of the inner canyon than any other artist before Merrill Mahaffey began making paintings from the Colorado River in the 1980s.

Widforss’ 1929 watercolor, Grand Canyon, Inner Gorge, in the collection of the Grand Canyon Museum, is among his inner canyon masterpieces. Painted from the Clear Creek Trail, his view includes the large gravel bars in the Colorado at the mouth of Bright Angel Creek, the apparent jumble of the Grand Canyon Super Group above Bright Angel Canyon with Isis Temple crowning the geological sampler. The painting and Widforss’ exploits recall Joshua Bean’s 2018 cross-canyon painting expedition.

Park Service naturalist Edwin McKee was one of Widforss’ closest friends at the South Rim. In a memoir McKee described Widforss’ method. “He was an exceptionally keen observer and he faithfully painted what he saw. Widforss’ paintings are remarkably faithful in detail and are careful records of nature.” While watching Widforss paint one day McKee observed that “The reason

Gunnar Widforss, Grand Canyon, Inner Gorge, 1929 | 17x21, watercolor

Courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, GRCA 13631

for his accuracy became readily apparent. He first outlined the features he wished to include by making a careful sketch of the topography, next he would paint the rock formations and vegetation over the outline, as he saw them, and finally he superimposed a blanket of haze and shadows characteristic of that particular time and place.”

Rarely are any signs of pencil lines or evidence of preliminary drawing visible beneath Widforss’ luminous layers of watercolors. When examined closely, very fine and faint lines, such as those drawn with a sharp, hard pencil, may occasionally be seen. George Collins, the Assistant Chief Ranger during Widforss’ residence at Grand Canyon and another of his closest friends, observed that he was “meticulous in his work and able to render the most exacting details and subtle effects of light and shade. He was impatient with anything mediocre.”

Gunnar Widforss’ ability, vision, and dedication are an inspiration for the artists who gather each September for the Grand Canyon Celebration of Art. In fact, given Widforss’ relationship with Stephen Mather it is safe to say that today’s Celebration of Art is the direct result of each man’s vision of the National Parks and the role that Mather knew art should play in promoting and celebrating our national treasures like Grand Canyon.