Conrad Buff - The Other-Worldness of the West

by Donna Poulton

Canyonland. Credit: Donna Poulton and Vern Swanson Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

There are few artists of the southwest whose technique is as expressive or singular as that of Conrad Buff (1886-1975).  His Modern interpretation of the southwest, using high-keyed architectural compositions and broken color patterns to distinguish the desert landscape, is unrivaled.  Born and raised in Switzerland, Buff moved to Los Angeles in his mid-twenties where he studied art under a number of instructors, but his work with Edgar Payne seems to have been a pivotal point in guiding his art career, especially in mural work.

Landscape with Trees. Credit: Donna Poulton and Vern Swanson Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Horse. Credit: SternFineArts.com

In 1923, Conrad Buff and his wife, Mary, made the first of many trips to the then relatively undiscovered Zion National Park.  Buff wrote that as they drove to Zion “The air got clearer and clearer and the landscape was as fantastic as it was beautiful.  Always the same varied pattern of hills, the same foreground with the sagebrush, but the air was so clear that the design of the hills stood out against the deep blue sky which has always fascinated me and still does—the deep blue sky and the mountains and hills against it.”

Canyon Wall, Zion National Park. Credit: Donna Poulton and Vern Swanson Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

In the late 1920s Buff was commissioned to paint mural decorations for a social hall in Huntington Park, California. After seeing other Utah landscapes and work related to the mural project at an exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum, Los Angeles art critic Merle Armitage wrote, “Conrad Buff comprehends the enormity of the West.  More than that, he adds thereto a discernment of the stylized and conventionalized forms in which the West abounds.  Not one artist in a hundred grasps the significance of the West’s dynamic forms.”

Monument Valley. Credit: SternFineArts.com

An exhibition at the Ilsley Gallery in Los Angeles showcased some of Buff’s Utah scenes, and a large Zion scene especially interested one exhibition visitor—Maynard Dixon.  Will South wrote that, “Immediately, there began a friendship which lasted as long as Maynard Dixon lived….[Dixon] was impressed by the style of the young Swiss and also by the locale of some of his paintings.”  South goes on to note that “According to Buff, Dixon was quite taken with a view of Zion National Park and had to ask its location because he had never been there on his own many travels of the West. Two months later, in June 1933, Dixon headed out to Zion in the company of his wife, photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)…”

Monument Valley. Credit: SternFineArts.com

During the Depression Buff worked briefly for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP).  Art critic Arthur Millier wrote, “…resting on Mr. Buff’s exploration, one can visualize a future school of painter, to whom he will have discovered the other-worldness of a region in which it is not uncommon to see, one behind another, red, white, black and blue peaks.  What at first seems to be his personal colorations turn out to be typical of the desert slope of mountains."

Canyon de Chelly. Credit: SternFineArts.com

Canyon Land (see above) depicts a large bluff surrounded by the waterway that has, over the millennia, cut its large rectangular profile and left it standing alone as an island.  The painting is unusually monochromatic for Buff, and his identifiable short brushstrokes and cross hatching are absent.  It suggests the silence and isolation of the eons and the weight of time.  Ed Ainsworth reported that Buff “repeatedly journeyed to the country known as the Wayne Wonderland on the Fremont River…sometimes with his wife and the Dixons.”

Deep Canyon. Credit: SternFineArts.com

Will South has suggested that it was his German accent, but whatever the reason, Conrad Buff spent much of his time in southern Utah during the War years. From this period came an outpouring of paintings and an evolution in his composition and method.  Since most of his paintings are undated and untitled it is difficult to ascertain exactly when and where the work was done.  Buff observed that:

Landscape painting has been my favorite thing practically all my life.  But I found out that the way that I saw landscape, especially the western landscape that I was so much in love with, wasn’t the way the public saw it.  I just couldn’t get interested in the verbenas and the sunsets.  I kept on painting these magnificent forms that I saw and that I was interested in, and I tried to get the magnificent blues that we saw on the desert, which wasn’t so easy to harmonize with the rest of the landscape.  And especially the wild country in Utah.

Utah Mesa. Credit: SternFineArts.com

Throughout the later 1950s and 60s, the perspective in Buff’s paintings comes down to eye level.  Landscapes that had been set at dizzying heights to illustrate the stature and depth of desert monoliths is replaced by scenes set at ground level.  But with the change in altitude came attendant explorations with plasticity.  The sky remained his signature blue, largely unbroken by texture or line, but the foreground elements were applied with thicker impasto and longer brush strokes.  The impression of light was achieved by the application of pure color rather than blending on the palette.

Lake Powell, Utah. Credit: SternFineArts.com

Buff’s mature desert series advanced further in the 1970s to expressive primary colors, flattened planes and architectural edifices recognizable only because they are iconographic emblems of the desert.  In these paintings, the landscape is an object - it has been stripped of the painterly devices of thick impasto, cross-hatching and the neo-impressionistic techniques of broken color. Nature has been reduced to minimal form and pure color, but in doing so Buff has established his own unrivaled vision of the West and nothing of its essence has been lost.

Untitled, Southern Utah. Credit: Donna Poulton and Vern Swanson Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Arizona Centennial – Ed Mell Takes a Lickin’

By Bennett Owen

Credit: newstucson

Talk about first class… have a look at this –

Credit: Ktar

It’s a memorial postage stamp, commemorating the centennial of Arizona statehood.  It portrays Cathedral Rock near Sedona and is the work of My-West friend Ed Mell who also happens to be one of the most innovative and gifted western artists alive today.

The stamp was unveiled in Prescott this weekend as celebrations got underway leading up to Statehood Day on February 14, 2012…AKA Mom’s birthday.  Governor Jan Brewer praised Mell’s effort as a “majestic work of art.”

Credit: fotopedia

And believe me, it was no fluke. Ed was one of the first painters we profiled on this site and his genius truly stirs my soul.  Do yourself a favor and watch this short collage but breathe deeply beforehand because these images will take your breath away.

The Top of the Continent – Through the Lens of Fred H. Kiser

By Bennett Owen

Fred H. Kiser. Credit: hockadaymuseum

He was one of the first entrepreneurs to use the phrase, “See America First,” and in the early years of the 20^th century, much of America got its impressions of the pioneer west from the cameras of Fred H. Kiser. As a keen businessman and consummate photographer, that suited him just fine.

Phantom Ship, Crater Lake, Oregon, by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: oldoregonhphots.com

What started out as a adolescent hobby quickly turned into a cottage industry as Kiser and his brother took advantage of the burgeoning penny postcard craze, snapping photographs of the Columbia River Gorge and selling them to guests at the family hotel just upriver from Portland. 

Hand-colored photograph of Crater Lake, Oregon. Credit: ebay

An avid mountaineer and adventurer, Kiser was soon leading massive teams and tons of equipment up tall peaks throughout the northwest to capture ever more daring and panoramic pictures for an eager public.

Crater Lake, Oregon by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Public-republic.de

But it was his groundbreaking images of Crater Lake in southern Oregon that cemented Kiser’s reputation as a preeminent nature photographer…that along with an innovation he described as the “Artograph,” a way of mass-producing hand colored images that could then be used for anything from postcards to leather covered coffee table albums.

Sunrise from Victor Rock by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: The Oregon State University Archives

Kisers’s talents caught the eye of the Great Northern Railway, which employed him to capture the stunning mountain vistas of northwestern Montana. In terms of promotional value the result was priceless but Kiser’s masterful images are also credited with convincing Congress to create Glacier Park in 1910.

Mountain Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Gutenberg

Kiser’s star had faded by 1930 but what he left behind is truly a remarkable documentation of the taming of frontier America.  

Fishing at St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: ebay

Two Medicine Lake and Camp, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser.  Credit: cemetarian.com

Iceberg Lake, Glacier National Park by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: photobucket

Great Northern Depot, Lower View, Everett Washington by Fred H. Kiser. Credit: Billyspostcads.com

The Keepers of the Canyons

By Bennett Owen

They are America’s ancient art form…

Newspaper Rock, Credit: Amy the Nurse

…the pictographs (painted onto the rock) and petroglyphs (pecked or carved into the rock) that adorn the sheer rock faces of the desert southwest…

More than seven thousand of these masterpieces have been catalogued in Utah alone

Petroglyphs, Capital Reef National Park, Credit: John Sternenberg

Inexplicable, quixotic and enduring...gestures from the past that call upon us to stop, to linger, to ponder their mysterious beauty...

Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire State Park: Credit: Alaskan Dude

Steeped in the aromas of the desert, the hum of stillness and the immeasurable nuances of red.  The singularity of the petrogylphs cannot be separated from the vast environment in which they reside....

Credit: akseabird

They are every bit as mysterious as they are beautiful archaeologists and historians differ on their meanings and origins…

Credit: AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

Some are maps and warnings, others chronicle actual event.

The Hunt, Credit: C. G. P. Grey

It seems early humans also sought immortality through art….

Their age is uncertain since carbon dating techniques are inaccurate on rocks...

Estimates range from hundreds of years to five millennia...

Credit: Beth M527

Otherwise, the who, why, how and what continue to confound the intellect and arouse the imagination.

Largo Canyon Petroglyph, New Mexico, Credit: Kurt Wagner

One thing the experts do agree on is the vital need to preserve these treasures from the relentless ravishing of nature.

The Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, Credit: Matt Knoth

From the careless and malicious destruction wrought by treasure seekers and mindless saboteurs.

Newspaper Rock, Utah, Credit: Sam_Wise

The Canyonlands Natural History Association is at the forefront of that task…a private foundation working in concert with the national parks, lending expertise and funding to a broad variety of preservation efforts. 

Detail Newspaper Rock, Credit: sfgamchick

The CNHA is mourning the loss of Bud Turner, an ingenious and intrepid chronicler of ancient art in the southwest.  As chief investigator for CNHA’s Discovery Pool project, he spearheaded a ‘spectral imaging’ campaign that has revealed fascinating glimpses into the native masterpieces…documenting and aiding in their preservation and restoration. 

An Indian elder once said, “In order to understand rock art, turn your back to the images and take in the surroundings. Only then will you begin to understand the message.“

Dead Tree, Credit: Matt Bargar

“Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts”

"Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts" - By Donna L. Poulton and Vern G. Swanson - Gibbs Smith Publishing

-- Jacket Cover: Edgar Payne, "Red Mesa, Monument Valley, Utah" Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Famous movie director John Ford once exclaimed, “…Monument Valley was my greatest star.” 

--James Swinnerton, “Desert Clouds”  Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

But long before Ford lionized these great icons of the southwest, paintings of the sweeping desert and colorful canyon country of Utah’s plateau province had captured the popular imagination of American and European audiences.

--Salomon Nunes Carvalho, “Natural Obelisks” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

--Thomas Moran in Zion Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Vividly illustrated and exhaustively researched, “Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts” is the first comprehensive history of the artists who painted Utah’s Red Rock with more than 300 paintings spanning 155 years of art.

--David Meikle “View of Zion Canyon” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

--Clay Wagstaff “Late October Evening” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

The book explores the contrasts between painters who called Utah home and those who explored and visited.  The book looks at lively anecdotes of the “artist as explorer,” including John Wesley Powell’s harrowing trip down the Colorado River, artist Solomon Nunes Carvalho’s recovery from the brink of starvation, and Richard Kern’s death at the hands of the Paiutes.

--David Meikle “Mount Carmel Afternoon” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

--Edie Roberson “Annie’s Trip to Southern Utah” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Love of the western landscape has to do with the capacity of the viewer to experience vast space.  To appreciate the desert terrain, one has to be comfortable with an inscrutable universe.  Whether existential or spiritual, these themes are evoked in the modern paintings of Ed Mell, Conrad Buff, Maynard Dixon, Gary E. Smith and many others.

--Ed Mell “Canyon Light and Rain” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

--Gary E. Smith “Canyon Dweller” Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts