Painting of the Day, October 26, 2011

By Donna Poulton

By the time Maynard Dixon painted On Coming Storm in 1941, he was dividing his time between his homes in Tucson, Arizona and Mt. Carmel, Utah.  His work became increasingly minimal reflecting his interest and search for inherently geometric forms in the western landscape.  His Modernist brush flattened the details while his traditional eye absorbed all of the pictorial elements.

Credit: Santa Fe Art Auction

Maynard Dixon, (1875-1946), On Coming Storm, 1941 [Arizona], oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches

My object has always been to get as close to the real thing as possible - people animals and country. The melodramatic Wild West idea is not for me the big possibility. The more lasting qualities are in the quiet and more broadly human aspects of Western life. -- Maynard Dixon

Color, Form and Light: Milford Zornes Comes Home

by Donna Poulton

Horses Red Canyon by Milford Zornes. Image courtesy of Bingham Gallery

From Milford Zornes by Gordon T. McClelland and Milford Zornes, Hillcrest Press, Inc.

By the time James Milford Zornes (1908-2008) moved to Utah in 1963, he had a long history of successful exhibitions, had traveled the world, was elected president of the California Watercolor Society and had established an international teaching reputation. He and his wife had not planned to move to southern Utah, but they found the property for sale while making an impromptu visit to Edith Hamlin at the home that she and Maynard Dixon had built in Mt. Carmel. This began a decades-long interest for Zornes in the investigation of new colors, forms and light.

Maynard Dixon's Cabin. Image courtesy of Bingham Gallery

During the thirty years that he lived in Mt. Carmel, Zornes painted around the Zion area in every season and from every vantage point.  On 1 April - 31 July 2011, the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts and Bingham Gallery are bringing Zorne’s work home to the Maynard Dixon property that he loved so much with a retrospective of some of his finest work; some of it painted from his own back door.

Image courtesy of Bill Anderson Art Gallery

Dixon's Front Gate by Milford Zornes. Image courtesy of Bingham Gallery

Caves of Kanab Canyon by Milford Zornes. Image courtesy of Bingham Gallery

Barn in Glendale by Milford Zornes. Image courtesy of Bingham Gallery