OUTDOOR SOUTHWEST - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

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REMINGTON: "DON GOMEZ AND HIS LANCERS AT OCHOA SPRING"
REMINGTON: "MARCHING IN THE DESERT"
26 / Desert Magazine / October, 1961
DELANO: "THE LADIES ARE GOING TO TOWN"
returned to Colorado and a modest homestead where
he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he could
"live well, even on a year's total income of $400."
Delano met the Navajos, some of whom "lived well
on $4 a year." Industrial America was hurting, but the
Navajo was little affected. He had his magnificent domain;
he had his string of ponies; he had his mutton on
the hoof; he had his loving family; and he had his
meaningful life. Was this then, the core of what the
West would mean for Delano?
He did a 102-week series for a national magazine on
"The Story of the West." Each drawing, with a page
of copy, illustrated one of the highlights of the development
of the West. After the series, Delano turned to
selling individual paintings. His free-lance art career
blossomed and then wilted, so he went into the largescale
reprint business, acting as his own salesman.
Again the pattern repeated itself: rise, decline.
A deeply religious man, Delano searched his conscience
for an answer to his repeated economic plight,
"I realized that all my efforts thus far had been solely
with the idea of self-advancement," he said. "Now I
felt it important to change my point of view to that of
rendering a service to and for God.
"My thoughts changed from getting to giving. God
had given me a talent with which to create beauty, and
this was what He wanted me to do."
Delano returned to hard work—and the Navajo.
Remington's passion was to show the dynamic West
as it really was. He was a documentary artist. He was
meticulous. When he painted a trooper and his horse,
it was a particular soldier who lived and breathed and
had a name; and the horse was unique in a world full
of horses.
Delano's passion is to pass on the inspiration he has
found in the West of his boyhood and manhood dreams.
His nightly prayers, during the time of his life when
his art career seemed doomed, contained this entreaty:
"God, give me the power to paint pictures better than
any I've ever done, paintings so fine and so beautiful
that people will love them and be inspired by them."
From Remington we have "men with the bark on"—
sweaty, dusty, dressed for the trail, tough, ready at a
moment's notice to work, play or fight.
From Delano we have stately Navajos at a placid
waterhole, silhouetted against an orange cloud; a
bronzed athlete executing smoke signals with a brilliant
red blanket; a Navajo shepherdess passing through a
dramatic sky.
Today Delano lives and prospers in Denver. Visitors
to his studio often ask whether he paints on order
or on speculation.
"Neither," he answered. "I paint on faith."
Although Remington's West and Delano's West are
startlingly different realms, the observer recognizes them
as emanating from the same amazing country. It is
significant to note that Remington and Delano and
countless other artists have withdrawn from the reservoir
of Western subject matter what they would; but
enough remains for legions upon legions of American
artists still unborn. These artists of posterity will look
Westward for whatever special satisfaction to their personal
souls they will believe awaits them in deep canyons,
windy mesas, towering mountains and the changing
desert.-£C7G£A r £ L. CONROTTO ///