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“Canyon Patriarch”
A marvelous, historic painting by Gerard Curtis Delano, oil on canvas panel,12” x 9”, N.D., c.1940’s-50’s
ex: Fred Harvey Company Fine Arts Collection
Gerard Curtis (Jerry) Delano’s (1890–1972) lifelong artistic passion was painting the Navajo Indians of Arizona,
Utah and New Mexico; their unique life ways and their incomparable and spectacular high desert and canyon landscapes, and, to that end, this small painting is a beautifully realized and completely authentic artistic American gem.
Befitting his uniquely American artistic subject matter, Gerard Curtis Delano was uniquely American himself, the descendant of a distinguished pioneering American family dynasty. He was born in Marion, Massachhuiseets, some 20
miles from Plymouth Rock where centuries earlier, his Delano family forbears, Pilgrims who had originally chartered
the Mayflower, first landed in 1620. There were seven Delano family members in all in passage on the Mayflower the day of that landing, including three signers of the Mayflower Compact, the official governing agreement of the Pilgrim's new Plymouth Colony. Gerard Delano was also related to America’s 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The “Canyon Patriarch”, a proud and dignified Navajo male elder, has been beautifully and lovingly portrayed here
by Delano in a completely spontaneous and fresh manner, yet perfectly composed with great dignity at the same time.
The restrained, high-key desert color palette and precise, yet free brushwork render the scene vividly to the point
where one can almost feel the dry canyon wind blowing through the red rock and hear the sharp, lonely, echoing cry
of the hawks or eagles circling high overhead at the very top of the painting.
At left and right, the spectacular Canyon de Chelley in northern Arizona is a deeply historic and sacred Navajo landscape and a characteristic and frequent scenic backdrop for any number of Gerard Curtis Delano’s Navajo paintings, including, very possibly, this one.
Left photo source and © National Park Service. Right photo source and © World History Encyclopedia
"The Navajo people are a proud and beautiful race of great dignity. It is my idea to show
them as I know them. There are few poorer people anywhere, yet it would be difficult to find
a happier lot, and I wonder if there is not a lesson in this for all of us.”
-Gerard C. Delano
"I do not paint for clients. I paint on faith. I love my work and am completely at peace in doing it.”
-Gerard Curtis Delano
The painting is properly and handsomely signed with Delano’s stylized monogram at the lower right and it is also prominently titled and signed as follows on the verso in the artist’s distinctive hand: “Picsie No. 30 Painted and Copyright by Gerard Curtis Delano” with an original, handwritten price sticker of $750.00. This sticker is historically noteworthy for being the characteristic red-bordered, octagonally-shaped sticker used by the prestigious Fred Harvey Company's Fine Arts Department which indicates that this painting was acquired by them, most likely directly from the artist, and then exhibited and sold at one of the Fred Harvey Company's prestigious high-end sales outlets such as the famous “Indian Room” at Albuquerque's Hotel Alvarado, The La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe or the famed Hopi House on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona among others.
Gerard Curtis Delano, c. 1970
Gerard Delano coined and used the term “Picsie” to denote his small, generally painted in Plein-aire directly on scene, often quite impromptu, oil sketches, notable for their remarkable “freshness” and composed spontaneity. The painting is in excellent original condition and it is most beautifully framed in a 22K gold-gilded, hand-carved Modernist-style frame by Goldleaf Framemakers of Santa Fe, Santa Fe’s premier fine art framers.
This wonderful and historic painting is a perfectly rendered unique and soulful slice of a now almost-vanished old desert Southwest by an extremely accomplished and dedicated artist who knew his subjects well and loved them deeply,
a piece to always be admired and always cherished.
Price $8,650