Journeys
Journeys
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Dear Friends, attracted them most—the people who made the region their home—spanning from Montana to the Southwest. Joseph Henry Sharp, featured with four paintings, surely fits this mold: two each from Taos and Montana’s Crow Agency. In the mix you’ll also find a Charlie Russell portrait of Deaf Bull, a bucolic encampment scene by William Gollings, and two striking portraits of Pueblo men by Will Shuster. Certainly, Thomas Moran is an artist whose career epitomized the idea of journey. He was famous for masterpieces that were created after arduous treks to remote regions of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, yet throughout his career, he never stopped seeking. His first trip to Venice led to ethereal depictions of the city, one of which we are presenting. Edward Potthast, who was known to have traveled with Moran, is represented by a vibrant watercolor painting of beach goers enjoying a sunny day. We’ve also included outstanding landscape scenes by Fremont Ellis, Birger Sandzen, and Gunnar Widforss, to name only a few. Still another type of journey comes from the work of Rick Dillingham, a potter whose vision reached both to the past and to new frontiers of his own imagination. We hope you will enjoy a moment to be transported through the work of the dedicated artists presented on these pages.
Richard Lampert, Summer 2021
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hen we selected Ward Lockwood’s Ranchos de Taos for the cover of this year’s catalogue, the painting inspired our title: “Journeys.” The road that winds through the painting sends us on a journey, leading us through the village toward the colorful fields and mountains beyond. We realized that this idea of movement and transport would be appropriate for nearly all of our featured artwork. The beauty of “journey” is that the word itself spurs the imagination. It may lead us on a path inward, to something as simple as a private moment for reverie and contemplation. Or, it may conjure a subject somewhere beyond ourselves, bringing thoughts of distant places, of somewhere we’ve never been, or a place we’re fond of and to which we long to return. Moreover, it’s an apt reference to the artists themselves who often went on journeys, seeking locations that would inspire them, satisfy their artistic cravings, or engage them in thrilling explorations. We know that is true of artists such as Karl Bodmer who ventured into the American West when it was a fledgling U.S. territory and who is featured with four hand-colored aquatint line engravings. And it was true of the artists who went westward later and found in that region not only magnificent landscapes but also unique cultural communities. No one was more tenacious than Edward S. Curtis in his thirty-year quest to pay homage to the North American Indian. We are featuring four Curtis historical photogravures that exemplify the scope of this work. For many of the artists, it was the human element that
Thomas Moran 1837–1926
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“W
hen Thomas Moran made his first trip to Venice in 1886, he was thrilled by what he found. He wrote to his wife Mary: “Venice is all, and more, than travellers have reported of it.”
The city’s byzantine-influenced architecture set against the waters of the Adriatic Sea inspired him to capture its splendor with a gemlike, translucent quality. “Moran’s debt to Turner’s Venetian pictures was immediately recognized by his contemporaries and surely contributed to the popularity and marketability of his pictures. . . . The subject became his ‘best seller.’” – Nancy K. Anderson, Thomas Moran
Grand Canal 1888 Watercolor, gouache and graphite 83/4 x 131/2 inches Signed and dated lower left
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August H. Becker 1840–1903
“H
— Bill and Dorothy Harmsen, American Western Art
Indians Hunting Buffalo 1900 Oil on canvas 22 x 36 inches Signed and dated lower right
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e was among the leading artists of his period, but he never attained the fame of his half brother, Charles Wimar, who was twelve years older. . . . Wimar’s fame has overshadowed his brother’s reputation. But the new interest in western art will place August Becker with the very best of western painters.”
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Karl Bodmer 1809–1893
Left Crow Indians 1840 Hand-colored aquatint line engraving 7 x 103/4 inches Above Dance of the Mandan Women 1839 Hand-colored aquatint line engraving 91/2 x 121/2 inches
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Left Saukie and Fox Indians 1840 Hand-colored aquatint line engraving 7 x 111/4 inches Above Horse Racing of Sioux Indians 1840 Hand-colored aquatint line engraving 101/2 x 133/4 inches
William Gollings 1878–1932
“H
is knowledge of what to paint and what not to tackle was almost unfailing during his mature years of work. He created some of the most poetic winter landscapes with Indians, horses, tepees [sic], and hills ever produced by an American artist.”
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– James T. Forrest, “The Last of His Kind,” in Bill Gollings: Ranahan Artist
“I
built a shack and called it a studio. The skylight in the roof gave me the right to call it such. . . . Work for the rest of my life is ahead of me with only one thing that would ever take me from it: to be younger and have the country open and unsettled as it was when I first made riding my profession.” – Bill Gollings, February 1923
Indian Encampment 1920 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 inches Signed and dated lower center
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Edward S. Curtis 1868–1952
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aken as a whole, the work of Edward Curtis is a singular achievement. Never before have we seen the Indians of North America so close to the origins of their humanity, their sense of themselves in the world, their innate dignity and self-possession.” – N. Scott Momaday, as quoted in Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
Quilcene Boy 1899 Photogravure on Japanese tissue 151/2 x 12 inches
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Edward S. Curtis 1868–1952
Above Cañon de Chelly 1904 Photogravure on Japanese tissue 113/8 x 151/2 inches Right Lummi Type 1899 Photogravure on Japanese vellum 141/2 x 101/4 inches
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Edward S. Curtis 1868–1952
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“I
nhabiting a mountainous country dotted with lakes and traversed by long winding rivers, the Kutenai very naturally became expert boatmen. . . . [One type of boat] consisted of a skeleton framework and a covering of fresh elk-hides sewn together and well stretched, which dried stiff and hard. This formed a remarkably seaworthy craft, . . . Both ends were noticeably rounded and upcurving, the canoe giving the impression of being closely patterned on the lines of a water-fowl.” – Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, Volume Seven
Kutenai Duck Hunter 1910 Photogravure on Dutch van Gelder paper 97/8 x 153/8 inches
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Gunnar Widforss 1879–1934
Bright Angel Landing, Zion National Park c. 1920s Watercolor on paper 191/2 x 17 inches Signed lower left
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Grand Canyon c. 1920s Watercolor on paper 191/2 x 17 1/2 inches Signed lower left
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Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton 1889–1971
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Moving Camp c. 1930s Oil on canvas 29 x 36 inches Monograph lower left
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ary-Russell Ferrell Colton established herself as a painter in the East before her move to the West. After graduating from the Philadelphia School of Design, she maintained a studio and exhibited her work throughout the U.S. and Europe as a member of the Philadelphia Ten. In 1926, she and her husband settled in Flagstaff, Arizona, and soon after, the couple founded the Museum of Northern Arizona, at the time calling it the Museum of Science and Art. Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton took an active role as curator of art and ethnology for twenty years. Having developed an avid interest in the Native American cultures living in northern Arizona, she became acquainted with the Hopi and Navajo and their artisanal work, supporting them with exhibits locally and around the U.S. As a painter, her subjects included the Native people and their customs, which she rendered with colorful treatment.
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Ralph Meyers 1885–1948
Indian Summer c. 1920 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches Signed lower left
Birger Sandzen 1871–1954
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Fall in the Mountains, Estes Park, Colorado 1927 Oil on board 14 x 10 inches Signed and dated lower right
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Charles M. Russell 1864–1926
Deaf Bull 1898 Watercolor on paper 13 x 10 inches Signed and dated lower left
Joseph Henry Sharp 1859–1953
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Winter Encampment c. 1905 Oil on canvas 10 x 151/4 inches Signed lower left
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Joseph Henry Sharp 1859–1953
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– Forrest Fenn, Teepee Smoke
Night on the Little Bighorn c. 1930s Oil on canvas 201/8 x 30 inches Signed lower left
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t Crow Agency, Montana: “Often he would travel alone, lost in the vast, beautiful, and still unspoiled country around him. On these occasions he was sometimes filled with a strange sorrow that his romanticized paintings reflected in tone and subject; he felt the deepest compassion for the Indians and for the passing of their era within the solemn, incomprehensible movement of history. It was probably this sensitivity, more than anything else, which was responsible for Sharp’s attention to detail.”
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Young Man of Taos, New Mexico c. 1920 Oil on canvas on board 9 x 7 inches Signed on verso
Joseph Henry Sharp 1859–1953
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A Corn Dance c. 1907 Oil on board 61/2 x 41/2 inches Signed lower left
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Eanger Irving Couse 1866–1936
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The Smoker 1916 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 inches Signed lower right
Will Shuster 1893–1969
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“I
n 1925, the artist John Sloan (Shuster’s friend and mentor) wrote to Shuster with a suggestion, after commenting on all the time he had spent painting scenes of the Carlsbad Caverns:
“Come back to human life—life of the Indian people—the world about you—simpler motives— you have proved that you can paint them—let’s have more of them if you please.” – As detailed and quoted by Joseph Dispenza and Louis Turner, Will Shuster: A Santa Fe Legend
Right Diego – Santo Domingo 1925 Oil on canvas on board 115/8 x 93/4 inches Signed and dated lower right Far Right Pedro – Jemez Pueblo 1925 Oil on canvas on board 111/2 x 95/8 inches Signed and dated lower right
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Victor Higgins 1884–1949
– Dean Porter, Teresa Hayes Ebie, and Suzan Campbell, Taos Artists and Their Patrons
New Mexico Landscape c. 1940 Watercolor 133/4 x 193/4 inches Signed lower left
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“H
Higgins, who admired John Marin's work, met the artist in 1929. Inspired and encouraged by his new acquaintance, Higgins turned from oils to painting plein-air watercolors with great vigor. His affinity with the medium soon was apparent; from the beginning, his watercolors were successful artistically.”
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John Ward Lockwood 1894–1963
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anchos de Taos, painted shortly after his arrival in New Mexico, has much in common with Dasburg's landscapes of the twenties, particularly the geometric structure in the foreground fields. . . . But more than Dasburg, . . . Lockwood enjoyed the physicality of paint itself." – Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall, Modernist Painting in New Mexico 1913-1935
Ranchos de Taos
c. 1920s Oil on canvas 28 x 40 inches Signed lower right
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Fremont Ellis 1897–1985
Galisteo c. 1920s Oil on artist board 10 x 14 inches Signed lower right
Raphael Lillywhite 1891–1958
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Taos Pueblo Oil on board 20 x 24 inches Signed lower right
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Theodore Van Soelen 1890–1964
The Flamingo Gate in Winter c. 1920s Oil on canvas 321/4 x 431/4 inches Signed lower right
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Tesuque Valley Adobe c. 1930 Oil on canvas on board 241/2 x 291/2 inches Signed lower center
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Joseph A. Fleck 1892–1977
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n his American paintings this passion for color finds an outlet in the floods of sunshine that paint the New Mexican desert in rainbow tints and crown the mountains with purple and gold. Against that bright background one sees in his pictures the human life that is inseparable from it.” – Kansas City Star review, reporting on a Fleck exhibition of forty-six paintings at the Kansas City Art Institute, 1929
Going Home c. 1948 Oil on canvas 251/4 x 301/4 inches Signed lower left
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Gustave Baumann 1881–1971
Point Lobos 1946 Color woodblock print I No. 1 of 125 121/2 x 121/2 inches Signed lower right; titled lower left
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Autumnal Glory 1920 Color woodblock print III No. 77 of 125 123/4 x 13 inches Signed lower right; titled lower left
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Gustave Baumann 1881–1971
Sunny Messengers 1915 Color woodblock print 101/2 x 91/2 inches Hand-in-heart Chop lower right
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Grandma Battins Garden 1925 Color woodblock print 65 of 120 12 x 125/8 inches Signed lower right; titled lower left
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Gene Kloss 1903–1996
Processional - New Mexican Church 1937 Drypoint, soft ground and roulette Edition of 50 107/8 x 14 inches Signed lower right; titled lower left
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Taos in Winter 1934 Drypoint and aquatint Edition of 50 93/4 x 137/8 inches Signed lower right; titled lower left
Rick Dillingham 1952–1994
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“W
hen Rick arrived at UNM (University of New Mexico) in 1971, he was already a talented ceramist and a dedicated student of Pueblo pottery. By the time he left in 1974, . . . he had invented several genres of pots which would occupy him throughout his career, notably . . . the fractured and reconstructed pots that would become for many collectors and critics his signature style. Also, in the work from the early 1970s there already resides the tensions among the pot as sculpture and the pot as a painting surface, and the pot as a traditional craft object and work of contemporary art. These tensions never subsided in his work.” – Peter Welch, Director, University of New Mexico Art Museum, “Rick Dillingham’s Legacy”
Silver Globe Earthenware 10 x 15 inches Signed on base
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Rick Dillingham 1952–1994
Above Fragments Left 1991 Earthenware 83/4 x 61/4 inches Signed on front; Right 1985 Earthenware 121/2 x 111/2 Signed on verso Right Brown and Bronze Globe 1989 Earthenware 101/2 x 10 inches Signed on base
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Edward Henry Potthast 1857–1927
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In
1910 Thomas Moran invited Edward Potthast to join him on an excursion to the Grand Canyon (courtesy of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad), marking Potthast's first trip to the American West.
Though it was reported that Potthast worked “indefatigably with brush and pencil” during the trip, the author noted: “At about the same time as his Grand Canyon trip, Potthast began painting beach scenes, the subject on which his reputation would subsequently rest. He depicted bathers at the seashore at Gloucester, Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, and elsewhere, as was his practice.” – Carol Troyen, Eternal Summer: The Art of Edward Henry Potthast
Sunday at the Beach 1914 Watercolor on paper 12 x 16 inches Signed lower right
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©2021 Zaplin | Lampert Gallery Design Alex Hanna, Invisible City Designs Photography James Hart Color Separations John Vokoun, Fire Dragon Color Pottery Photography: Addison Doty
651 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 505.982.6100 zaplinlampert.com
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651 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.982.6100 | zaplinlampert.com