PROPERTY OF A PROMINENT TEXAS COLLECTOR. RALPH BROWNELL MCGREW (American, 1916-1994). Lure of the Canyon. Acrylic on p...

Description

PROPERTY OF A PROMINENT TEXAS COLLECTOR

RALPH BROWNELL MCGREW (American, 1916-1994)
Lure of the Canyon
Acrylic on panel
27 x 36 inches (68.6 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: R. Brownell McGrew
Titled verso: Lure of the Canyon

R. Brownell McGrew once said of his painting technique, "I am an Impressionist in the classical sense. Reality comes from the suggested rather than from the detailed or the finished. My paintings are not exact copies of any of the scenes I see." Ironically, it is Brownell's very attention to detail and to the "finished" composition - he mixed linseed oil and turpentine with his paints to achieve a "fresh-off-the-easel" wet look - that characterizes his exquisite Native American portraits and desert landscapes. A native of Columbus, Ohio, McGrew studied and later taught painting at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles before working as a commercial artist for Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. It was on sketching trips into the desert, from California to Arizona to New Mexico, that McGrew befriended Navajo and Hopi Indians, whom he painted with sensitivity to both personal character and physical accuracy, emphasizing, for example, weather-wrinkled skin and tousled grey hair. Lure of the Canyon demonstrates this same realism, here applied to geology. Indeed, in rendering the sun-drenched arryo of a Southwestern canyon, McGrew compositionally balances the different strata, colors, and sizes of rocks, arranging them in a precise "rock garden" fashion.


More information about RALPH BROWNELL MCGREW. See also: McGrew, Ralph Brownell, Ralph Brownell McGrew, McGrew, R. Brownell Artist.



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