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拍品专文
Gerard Curtis Delano once said, "The Navajo people are a proud and beautiful race of great dignity. It is my idea to show them as I know them.” (as quoted in American Artist, vol. 33, 1969, p. 56) In the present work, inscribed with the title “The Proud People” on the reverse, the artist’s deep respect for the Navajo people and their unique culture is inherent.
Initially trained as an illustrator, including under Harvey Dunn at the Grand Central School, Delano first travelled West in 1919, venturing towards Colorado in search of a more authentic understanding of his favored Western subjects. In 1933, following pressure on his illustration career during the Great Depression, the artist settled permanently in Denver, establishing a studio and residence. Travelling throughout the region in search of inspiration, Delano’s greatest stimulation came from his experiences on the Navajo reservation in Northeast Arizona, where he found ample material in the unique landscape and its distinct inhabitants. The area’s dramatic desert topography is home to some of the nation’s most unique natural formations, including Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. The Native Americans of this region and their relationship with this landscape quickly became the focus of Delano’s most successful compositions, including Navajo (American Museum of Western Art--The Anschutz Collection, Denver, Colorado).
As in that work, The Proud People takes as its subject a group of Navajo travelling through a dramatic canyon in the American Southwest. In these works, as in others, his subjects are coming or going, while noticeably engaging in conversation, conceivably en route to a distant trading post or dance. The circumstances are just mysterious enough to allow the viewer to wonder, create their own possible story and become more deeply invested in the scene. The present work further invites the viewer through a characteristic use of vibrant and contrasting color forms, with its warm canyon walls in the distance contrasted by the cooler tones in the shadows of the foreground. The painter also delights in the beautifully vibrant textiles and silver and turquoise jewelry, which are recognizably unique aesthetic traditions of his subject and contribute further to their unquestionable sense of pride as they sit tall in their saddles. Such lively, pulsating color tones are characteristic not only of Delano, but also notable mid-century Western painter William Robinson Leigh.
In his own unique style, in The Proud People, Delano simplifies his forms to near abstraction, stylizing the figures and their horses in a manner that mirrors the contours of their surrounding landscape. In equally characteristic form, he heightens the composition’s drama through a highly-textured foreground, likely applied by palette knife, that contrasts with the smooth, broad brushstrokes deeper in the composition. The result is a singular composition that is instantly recognizable as a Delano painting of the utmost quality, and testifies to the undeniable success of the artist’s focus on celebrating the proud peoples of the American Southwest.
Initially trained as an illustrator, including under Harvey Dunn at the Grand Central School, Delano first travelled West in 1919, venturing towards Colorado in search of a more authentic understanding of his favored Western subjects. In 1933, following pressure on his illustration career during the Great Depression, the artist settled permanently in Denver, establishing a studio and residence. Travelling throughout the region in search of inspiration, Delano’s greatest stimulation came from his experiences on the Navajo reservation in Northeast Arizona, where he found ample material in the unique landscape and its distinct inhabitants. The area’s dramatic desert topography is home to some of the nation’s most unique natural formations, including Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. The Native Americans of this region and their relationship with this landscape quickly became the focus of Delano’s most successful compositions, including Navajo (American Museum of Western Art--The Anschutz Collection, Denver, Colorado).
As in that work, The Proud People takes as its subject a group of Navajo travelling through a dramatic canyon in the American Southwest. In these works, as in others, his subjects are coming or going, while noticeably engaging in conversation, conceivably en route to a distant trading post or dance. The circumstances are just mysterious enough to allow the viewer to wonder, create their own possible story and become more deeply invested in the scene. The present work further invites the viewer through a characteristic use of vibrant and contrasting color forms, with its warm canyon walls in the distance contrasted by the cooler tones in the shadows of the foreground. The painter also delights in the beautifully vibrant textiles and silver and turquoise jewelry, which are recognizably unique aesthetic traditions of his subject and contribute further to their unquestionable sense of pride as they sit tall in their saddles. Such lively, pulsating color tones are characteristic not only of Delano, but also notable mid-century Western painter William Robinson Leigh.
In his own unique style, in The Proud People, Delano simplifies his forms to near abstraction, stylizing the figures and their horses in a manner that mirrors the contours of their surrounding landscape. In equally characteristic form, he heightens the composition’s drama through a highly-textured foreground, likely applied by palette knife, that contrasts with the smooth, broad brushstrokes deeper in the composition. The result is a singular composition that is instantly recognizable as a Delano painting of the utmost quality, and testifies to the undeniable success of the artist’s focus on celebrating the proud peoples of the American Southwest.