spontaneity trail void of formulaic systems.”
For Sublette, Dixon is a perfect storm of talent,
a storm that crashed against the American West
at the perfect time and place. “He had stunning
draftsmanship, impeccable compositions, he
had a great sense of color. And with Native
Americans, he appreciated their ways and
captured them honestly from life, always the
truth and never embellishing,” he says. “Maynard
Dixon was the full package. He just had this
innate ability to create. It was his gift.”
All these things are true, but for Dixon it
all came down to the desert, the place that not
just held his attention but guarded his soul. In a
poem titled At Last, he plants his legacy in the
place he called home.
At last,
I shall give myself to the desert again,
that I, in it’s golden dust,
may be blown from a barren peak,
broadcast over the sun-lands.If you should desire some news from me,
go ask the little horned toad whose home
is the dust,
or seek it among the fragrant sage,
or question the mountain juniper,
and, by their silence,
they will truly inform you.Maynard Dixon’s
American West: Along
the Distant Mesa
March 8-April 30, 2019;
artist reception, March 8, 5-7 p.m.
Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery,
6872 E. Sunrise Drive, Suite 130,
Tucson, AZ 85750
(520) 722-7798,
http://www.medicinemangallery.comMaynard Dixon (1875-1946), Drifting Shadows, January 1941, oil on canvas board, 16 x 20”