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Desert Skies

Currency:USD Category:Western Americana Start Price:NA Estimated At:200,000.00 - 300,000.00 USD
Desert Skies
Desert Skies
Artist: Payne, EdgarDate of Birth: 1883-1947
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 30 x 34 inches
Signed: Signed lower left

At 14, Edgar Payne knew that he wanted to be an artist. When his father disapproved, he left home. Having had no real formal training, Payne worked his way to Chicago as a house, sign, and theatrical scene painter. Though he did receive some training in Chicago and did enjoy some success there, it was an enthralling visit to CaliforniaÕs Pacific coastline and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1909 that set him on a course that would become a career. Three years later, Payne and his wife Elsie settled in Laguna Beach. California landscapes would provide subjects for a lifetime of paintings, though the Paynes, and, later, their daughter Evelyn, would travel and paint in Europe and throughout the Southwest. Two Navajo riders move from sunlight to shade in the dappled plateau under Desert Skies, adding a sense of human scale to the grandeur of the setting. Forms compete for the viewerÕs attention, inspiring a youthful, playful, Peter Pan pareidolia. These are the kinds of clouds you see ships in, turtles in, the kinds of clouds you see the mouths of wolves in. These are the kinds of rocks you see lost cities in, lost worlds in, the kinds of rocks where great warriors contend with great beasts. Far off, at right, rain streaks into shadow. Soon the light will shift, and the shapes will shift with the light, and you will make new worlds of these shapes, worlds for your imagination to revel in and dwell in.