Artist: Gerard Curtis Delano; Title: The Fur Traders; Medium: Oil on canvas; Dimensions: 32 x 42 inches; Signed: Signed lower right; Framed/Base: 41 x 51 inches
This lot's overall appearance is Excellent. This piece was evaluated under a black light. Very minor areas of craquelure in the bottom areas of water as well as the top left and right of sky. Indication of 19" stretcher bar line on the top left to the top middle of painting. 5" x 2 1/2"
Overall Dimensions
Height: 41.00
Width: 51.00
Provenance:
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, NV, 2013
Private collection, New York
Although he was primarily known for his Navajo scenes in canyons, Gerard Curtis Delano painted numerous works of figures in canoes. These range from warriors paddling into unseen danger to, as seen here, fur traders with their Indigenous escorts. Delano didn’t always name the tribes in these paintings, but they varied from Menominee and Ojibwe in the Great Lakes region to tribes on the Northwest Coast. Here, in Fur Traders, one possible tribe pictured is the Ojibwe people based on the style of birchbark canoe. The painting, one of the largest and most magnificent of Delano’s canoe works, is split horizontally down the middle as the image is repeated in the water’s reflection. This dual image allowed the artist to abstract and distort the figures, creating a unique interplay between the top and bottom of the painting. Adding to the surreal tone of the painting are the glass-like surface of the water and the misty fog that hangs in the background, which give the painting an almost dreamlike quality as the canoe and its reflection hang within Delano’s light paint.