I posted a couple of weeks ago about a recent visit to the Denver Art Museum. The new director there, who shook up the Native American exhibits, is apparently a Maynard Dixon expert. I've posted before how much I enjoy Maynard Dixon's work so it was nice to see that the new director has had them pull out and show what they have. The painting above titled "The Prisoners" is an illustration used for the cover of Sunset Magazine in an issue that dealt with the American incursion into Mexico in 1916.
This one is called "Hogback Hill" and was painted in 1942, four years before Dixon's death. I think it is the most understated painting of his I have seen.
"Little Sister" is an oil sketch painted in 1917 while Dixon was on a trip to Montana.
This painted folding screen is a real eye-popper, emblematic of Dixon's work, and I think I have seen it illustrated in every book I've ever read about him. "Study in Cubist Realism" was painted in 1925. I got a stern lecture from one of the Museum staff for using my flash while taking this picture.
4 comments:
I'm reminded of Sam Peckinpaw's Wild Bunch.
I will definitely go there next time in Denver.
Sorry about the lecture, but while photography of Museum works is permitted, flash is prohibited to protect the art.
- Rose Beetem, DAM Communication Dept.
It's as if the paintings were created using pigments made from the South West earth itself, the sort of saturated but matte finish, iron oxide and bentonite throughout.
Dixon did have the colors down pat. I think he caught the color of sagebrush better than just about anyone
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