Image of the Day, May 1, 2012

“…always a new horizon—but always back to the deserts of America.” - Ed Ainsworth writing about the artist Don Perceval

Don Perceval was born in England in 1908, but moved to California with his family when he was young. He studied at the Chouinard Art School and illustrated his first book at age 19. He made numerous trips to the desert to paint and ultimately, the Hopi made him a member of their tribe in 1952. Among his illustration commissions was the work he did for the “Santa Fe Magazine,” published by the Santa Fe Railroad.

Hopiland, n.d., tempera on paper, 22 x 16 in. Credit: Webposters Arizona, n.d., tempera on paper, 22 x 16 in. Credit: VanSabbenAuctions

Image of the Day, April 29, 2012

By Donna Poutlon

“I decided very early that I would be an American painter. I travelled the county over, and the West appealed to me. There is no phase of landscape in which we are not richer, more varied and interesting… ” – Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran, watercolor. Credit: Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts.Traveling with John Wesley Powell during the summer of 1873, Thomas Moran painted Colburn’s Butte. Powell often named lakes and mountains after people on his expeditions. He named the peak after J.E. Colburn a writer for the New York Times who was travelling with the survey expedition to record his impressions of the southwest for a chapter in William Cullen Bryan’s Picturesque American.

Photograph of a Paiute Youth, Thomas Moran, and J.E. Colburn, 1873. Credit: Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts.

Image of the Day – Vintage Photo, April 27, 2012

Cowboy coffee, c. 1920. Vernacular photograph of the West from the My-West.com photography collection.

© My-West.com Photography Collection. All rights reserved.Cowboy Coffee - The Pony Espresso

Cowboy Coffee – The Pony Espreso, Part Two

Image of the Day - Vintage Photo, April 24, 2012

This photograph is spooky.

© My-West.com Photography Collection. All rights reserved.Initially, we thought we had added a nice photograph depicting two women fishing to our My-West collection. After scanning it, however, the eerie silhouette of a man in the upper right corner of the photograph was revealed. Any ideas?

Vernacular photograph of the West from the My-West.com photography collection, circa 1900.

Image of the day, April 22, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Credit: Brian Cobble Brian Cobble’s (1953-) photo-realist pastels are situated in locations as diverse as southern Utah's red rock country and sophisticated upscale department store windows in New York City, but it was his depictions of small-town America that first caught my attention. Cobble focuses on vernacular elements: a water tower, grain silos reflected in a store window, kitchy curios (a hobby craft donkey and tulips) in the front yard, the garden hose, curtained windows of well kept homes — all elements that comprise the infrastructure and personality of small towns found anywhere in America, but especially in the west.

Credit: Brian Cobble While evidence of human endeavor is obvious, Cobble’s images are unpopulated; an edgy silence and sober clarity pervade the small town scenes. In “Prom Nite,” the mannequins act on layers of shared memory of small town life holding the promise of youth suggested by the title, but also evoking tension and ambiguity inherent in a plastic model of perfection and its connotation for the persona of a community.

Credit: Brian Cobble “…The United States is so large and so diverse … that one is often both awed and spooked by its landscapes. This has always made me approach landscape painting with a sense of respect, and with an eye out for the surreal, the mystical, or the just plain quirky, things not hard to find if you’re looking for them.” — Brian Cobble