Here's one of those postcard booklets with the flip-down-two-sided cards. This one was part of the collection Fred Harvey sold. As usual, the illustrator is not given any credit. I love the front cover of the Hopi Pueblo and the back of the Navajo sheepherder in Monument Valley. Both really lovely illustrations in Southwestern colors. Each would make a really nice framed print. I wonder if these paintings even exist anymore? As you'll notice on the Navajo one there is the slit where the flap is to slip in to enclose the card booklet.
Click on image to see it larger.
The shot of the Grand Canyon is also quite interesting. A black and white shot that had color tinting applied, most likely as overlays on the mechanical, it gives the Canyon a sort of candy colored rainbow look.
This dates most likely to the mid-to-late 1940s.
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It's been said that Fred Harvey 'invented' the Southwest as a cultural phenomena. The art, old or new, that has this 'look and feel' to it speaks volumes. All three of these images are iconic and contain elements of not only 'good' art, but good advertising. Who wouldn't want to visit if the Southwest looked like this?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious myself as to the artists the employed to produce the originals for these images.
I believe it. These are iconic images repeated over and over again by various artists. As relevant today as then. I still remember seeing a Navajo woman, in lovely turquoise color dress, riding her horse alongside the highway back in the early 80s. It was all the same colors just a few miles from Monument Valley.
ReplyDeleteI see where there is a book at Amazon called "Inventing the Southwest: The Fred Harvey Company and Native American Art" that was apparently related to a show in 1997 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. A wonderful museum. I wonder what's in this book? Wonder if any of the artists the Harvey company used got recognition? We'll have to keep our eyes open. If you find anything let me know. I think a book about the art used to sell this image of the Southwest, including the old Santa Fe rail ads, would be really interesting.
you are right. I feel like I've seen these before, all the while knowing I haven't. His pictures and/or style has been being copied all through the years.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ron. Nice to come home from vacation to comments of approval!
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