OUTDOOR SOUTHWEST - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

ONE OF THE most persistent
refrains in the history of
Western art is the old story
of the talented Eastern painter
harboring a childhood longing for
the spacious West, realizing his
dreams in a temporary or permanent
move to the West, and
once here, making a reputation
for himself as a chronicler of
some particular phase of the colorful,
varied and inspiring Western
scene.
MORE ON THE IMAGE OF THE VEST:
TWO ARTISTS;
TWO IMPRESSIONS
Such an artist was Frederic
Remington, the 100th anniversary
of whose birth we pause to
remember this month of October,
1961. He left the East in 1880
with sketch pad in hand. When
his life's work was done (Remington
died at 48), critics said
of him that he had "captured
the aroma of the West."
And such an artist (although
perhaps on not so lofty a plane
as occupied by Remington) is
Gerard Curtis Delano whose
painting, "Navajo Shepherdess,"
appears on the cover of this magazine.
Navajos are Delano's favorite
subject, and the basis of
his somewhat unique station in
Western art is: "He captured
the nobility of the Navajo."
Delano began drawing "Indians
on horses" as a four-year-old
in New England.
"Today, that is still my favorite
subject," he says.
Working as a clerk in a New
Bedford sporting-goods store by
day, and studying art at night
school, he soon graduated to designing textiles and
women's fashions. Later, he went into free-lance humorous
caption drawing for the old magazines Life,
Judge and Puck. All during this busy time, the kingsize
dream persisted: "Someday I will paint the spacious
West."
After serving in World War I, Delano obtained a job
with an advertising agency. "When work slackened
that summer, I found my first chance to go West, and
so I went," he relates. "On a Colorado cattle ranch I
learned to ride, and I found there the kind of subjects
FREDERIC REMINGTON'S "LUNCHEON IN THE DESERT"
GERARD CURTIS DELANO'S "THE DISCUSSION"
I wanted to paint as a magazine illustrator and cover
artist."
Remington, in his 1880 trek, was immediately aware
that the days of the frontier West were limited. The
West was changing before his very eyes, and he had to
work fast. The West that his genius created was as
unromantic on canvas as it was in actual fact. Remington's
cowboys needed baths; his soldiers were only lifesize
and unmilitary; the mountains were rugged, the
deserts dusty, the waterholes foul.
Delano's career has had many sharp ups and downs.
His magazine venture sagged with the Depression, so he
October, 1961 / Desert Magazine / 25