Maynard Dixon (American, 1875-1946). Bright Morning, Utah, October 1944. Oil on canvas laid on board. 20 x 24 inches (50...

Description

Maynard Dixon (American, 1875-1946)
Bright Morning, Utah, October 1944
Oil on canvas laid on board
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed, dated, and inscribed lower left: Maynard Dixon / Utah, Oct. 1944
Signed, titled, and inscribed on the reverse: 706 / Bright Morning / Maynard Dixon / Tucson Ariz.

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
Hubert and Mabel Richardson, owners of Cameron Trading Post, Cameron, Arizona;
Sherman and Mary Favour Haseltine, Prescott, Arizona;
Private collection, Scottsdale, Arizona;
Larsen Art Auction, Scottsdale, Arizona, October 24, 2015, lot 71;
Private collection, acquired from the above.

In 1937, Dixon married his third wife and fellow artist, Edith Hamlin. By 1940, due to Dixon's failing health, they moved to Tucson, Arizona, and built a summer home and studio on twenty acres of land just east of Zion National Park in Mount Carmel, Utah. Mount Carmel was Dixon's sacred place of quietude, peace, inspiration, and retreat from the summer heat in Arizona. Here, Dixon would continue to create simple but powerful masterworks through his final years of life.

Bright Morning, Utah depicts a panoramic vista from Dixon's home in Mount Carmel which overlooks a peaceful valley with grazing cattle, golden cottonwoods, and the magnificent Diana's Throne in the distance. The stark blue shadows of the mesa act as a cool backdrop to the warmth of the valley floor. Golden cottonwoods, symbolic of the sun, afterlife, and solitude, were a personal emblem that would be a reoccurring theme in his compositions in the last fifteen years of his life. Bright Morning, Utah is entirely composed of Dixon's iconic trademarks -- broad modernist brushwork, a bold palette, and concentration on shape, line, and form. Dixon explained, "My work, outside the limits of illustration, is not the regulation "Wild West" type painting. I aim rather to interpret the vastness...loneliness, and sense of freedom this country inspires. To me, the wind of the wastelands has color, the opalescent ranges of the desert seem like music, and sometimes the giant clouds of storm, piled far above the mountains, take form as lost and forgotten gods..." Dixon's profound connection to nature and the western landscape during his fifty-year career has undoubtedly left an everlasting impression on the Western Art world.


More information about Maynard Dixon. See also: Dixon, Maynard, Dixon, Lafayette Maynard Artist.



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