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RAY SWANSON (1937 - 2004)

Currency:USD Category:Pottery & Glass / Glass Start Price:3,250.00 USD Estimated At:6,500.00 - 8,000.00 USD
RAY SWANSON (1937 - 2004)
RAY SWANSON (1937 - 2004)
Canyon Shadows
Gouache and Watercolor, 22" x 29"
signed lower left
Born on a farm in Alcester, South Dakota
in 1937, Swanson studied for eight years in a
one-room schoolhouse. When his father was
killed in an accident, the family sold out and
moved to California. While he was studying
aeronautical engineering at Northrop Institute,
his grandfather who had painted as a hobby left
Swanson his paint box. Swanson "figured if they
were oil paints, they probably should go on oil
cloth, "but he persevered. After he graduated in
1960 and worked as a civil engineer, he painted
farm subjects in the evenings and on weekends.
With his brother Gary, he opened a diorama
and gift shop where he also hung his paintings
priced from $25 to $75. Swanson brought Indian
merchandise for resale in the shop, became
involved in studying the Indian civilization,
and moved to Prescott, Arizona, because of the
established art colony and because it was only
a two hour drive from the reservations. He had
become a fulltime artist "permanently under the
spell of the Southwestern landscape and the effect
of light on it." Swanson was a member of the Oil
Painters of America, the American Watercolor
society, the National Association of Western Art
and the prestigious Cowboy Artists of America.
(The scene is from Canyon de Chelly in Northwest Arizona near Chinle, AZ. It was painted in the mid-
1980's – the Navajo sheep herder is one of the few families that live in the canyon during the summer
months.)