367 Desert Canyon

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2016 Apr 02 @ 16:39UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price 3,000.00 USD
Estimated at 6,000.00 - 9,000.00 USD
Desert Canyon
Artist: Swinnerton, JamesDate of Birth: 1875-1974
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 28 x 34 inches
Signed: Signed lower right
Verso:

On his method and philosophy, James Swinnerton said, “There are so many parts to a landscape that attention must be paid to all of them. The clouds should float, instead of looking like rocks. The sky should be air, not blue paint. Each bit of vegetation is different; every shrub is an individual. Distance should be muted, the foreground accentuated. When I can accomplish these things, a feeling comes out of that picture—a feeling that goes from hand to hand, from brain to brain, from heart to heart. Then I am on the same wave length with many other people.” (Ainsworth, Painters of the Desert, 1960, p. 37.)
California native James Swinnerton’s first success came not as the fine painter of desert scenes he would become, but as a cartoonist for the Hearst newspapers. After near fatal bouts with alcoholism and TB, Swinnerton settled in Palm Springs, where he found the soul of the desert in magnificent watercolors and oils.