Landscape remains one of the most popular subjects for artists visiting and residing in Arizona. Philip C. Curtis, while not known as a landscape painter, draws extensively on that subject. Curtis came to the state in 1937 to establish the Phoenix Federal Art Center under the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program. He left two years later to head a similar facility in Des Moines, Iowa, but returned to Arizona in 1947. Settling in Scottsdale, he painted surreal compositions, with figures in Victorian costumes set in the desert. Arizona’s landscapes were a rich source of inspiration for him, and while his canvases do not portray any recognizable geological features, his work may be contextualized within the work of a broad spectrum of artists who came to the state. Curtis saw the desert through a lens of magic realism. This differed from Maxfield Parrish, Eugene Berman, and other artists who preferred more representational modes.

American Scenes/Americas Seen features works spanning the 1930s and 1940s by celebrated muralists and abstract artists including Diego Rivera, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Carlos Mérida, Alice Trumbull Mason, Doris Rosenthal, and others.

During the thirties and forties, many artists reacted against the abstract styles favored by the first generation of American moderns, dismissing non-objective art as “un-American.” Favoring representational modes, artists on both sides of the border pursued variations on several period styles variously called in the United States as the American Scene, Regionalism, and Social Realism.

In Mexico, the Mural Movement shaped by the utopian fervor of the Revolution was initially a state-sponsored project to bring public art to the masses, translating nationalist ideologies into visual form. Some celebrated muralists like Diego Rivera also created easel paintings of idealized peasants marketed to foreign tourists, and Alfredo Ramos Martinez’s heroic paintings of indigenous peoples were in great demand during his sojourn in California in the late thirties.

Many US artists, however, continued to pursue modern styles, and in 1936 a group of them founded the Abstract Artists of America to exhibit together and to educate the public. Alice Trumbull Mason, a founder of the AAA, declared “I was completely joyful not to be governed by representing things anymore.” Nevertheless, the majority of Mexican artists continued the Muralists’ emphasis on figuration and social themes during this period. Though initially active in the Mural Movement and the Taller de Gráfica Popular (The Peoples Print Workshop), Carlos Mérida was one of the first artists in Mexico to experiment with abstraction. He paved the way for others to explore abstract styles in the ensuing decades.

Spurred by the artists from the North East who comprised the Hudson River School, landscape painting was one of the most popular subjects in nineteenth-centuryAmerica. Pushed ever westward by expansionist notions of Manifest Destiny, a belief that such territorial expansion was inevitable and pre-ordained. Painters were also part of government initiatives to survey the vast region, particularly in regards to potential railroad routes and to learn about the indigenous populations they encountered. 

Various locations around Scottsdale and the greater Phoenix area.

Various locations around Scottsdale.

Featuring recent loans and gifts from Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz and Sanford and Beth Hoffman, this exhibition of contemporary Japanese ceramics examines how artists transcend functionality, gender, and material to create pieces that are modern yet rooted in tradition. Examples of basketry used for ikebana floral arrangements are also showcased and share a similar rustic and natural aesthetic.