125 Mountain Sunrise

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2015 Apr 11 @ 13:09UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Western Americana
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 4,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
Mountain Sunrise
Artist: Dixon, MaynardDate of Birth: 1875-1946
Medium: Gouache
Dimensions: 8 x 9 inches
Signed: Signed lower right (Nvorczk) and dated 1934

A glance at Mountain Sunrise shows that it isnÕt what weÕve come to expect, even from such a profoundly diverse artist. The forms of the mountains blend and drip. What this painting is about is light, dawn, the eye of creation waiting to receive a benediction. ThenÑthe signature. Not Dixon at all, but some other name. You see, Maynard Dixon had a secret, an alter ego that remained undiscovered until after his death. Acutely aware of the ModernismÕs emphasis on the expression of internal, psychological states and the rejection of representation and traditional approaches, Dixon, without subscribing wholly to any of it, didnÕt hesitate to adapt what he saw to his own purposes. But then, a box of DixonÕs paintings was discovered, paintings completely at odds with what we thought we knew: works filled with bodies and demons, violence and raw sexuality, and wild transformations, work signed ÒNvorczk,Ó as if he had an avant-garde doppelganger somewhere in Eastern Europe. We have to grapple with this, realize that these private experiments are key pieces in DixonÕs aesthetic, that they fold back into the public works we know. Without them, our understanding of this towering American artist is incomplete.