Abandoned Ranch (Lonesome Ranch), Los Banos, California, July 1935
oil on canvas affixed to board
22.75h x 26w inches
Not For Sale at the Time
Maynard Dixon's portrayal of the American West reflects his own attitudes and artistic imagination, which served to bring current modern art movements to a new level. Throughout his prolific and varied career, Dixon believed deeply in self-expression and pursued art for its own sake. An individual who personally shunned formal academic training because of its confining structure, Dixon created his own unique vision of the great West and has left a profound and authentic record of the American landscape.
During the mid 1930s, Dixon painted some of his most poignant images that captured post Depression-era California and the maritime strikes of 1934. His graphic and brooding narratives of destitute migrant workers had a strong influence on the artist's landscape painting. "In addition to the strike pictures, Maynard painted the broader issues of a depression-era West, canvases that project human isolation and alienation resulting from an unparalleled social upheaval. In tracing his evolution toward this new art, he explained:
Gradually I broadened out. Starting with a more romantic approach I work slowly toward a more psychological approach. This led, among other things, to a shift of emphasis from an exclusively Western point of view to a broader American outlook. I began to approximate the kind of American art for which Bellows, Sloan and others had fought 30 years ago, and which only recently has become an accepted school...The depression woke me up to the fact that I had a part in all this, as an artist...Painting as I see it, must be human rather than arty. Painting is a means to an end. It is my way of saying what I want you to comprehend. It is my testimony in regard to life, and therefore I cannot lie in paint." (as quoted in D.J. Hagerty, Desert Dreams: The Art and Life of Maynard Dixon, Layton, Utah, 1993, pp. 205-06)
According to scholar, Donald Hagerty, in the summer of 1935 Dixon traveled with fellow artist Ray Strong to the agricultural fields and migrant labor camps around Shafter, California. The two painters continued north exploring the San Joaquin Valley until they reached Coalinga, where Dixon came across the farm depicted in Abandoned Ranch, situated where the valley floor meets the Coast Range of the Coalinga area. "In this sprawling array of hills, grass, and sky, Dixon discovered the rural economy had been shattered by the Depression. Small ranchers, unable to cope, had fled the land, leaving their livelihood and homes behind. Where once these hills had hosted numerous cattle and sheep ranches, not one remained." In Abandoned Ranch, Dixon captures the haunting isolation of a bygone era surrounded by the natural and understated beauty of the rugged American landscape composed in the artist's personally reflective yet modern aesthetic.
SIGNATURE
signed and dated 'Maynard Dixon/July 1935' (lower right)
Our internal notes say that the painting is #532 on Dixon's master list
PROVENANCE
Edith Hamlin, wife of the artist.
Private collection, Oklahoma, circa 1970s.
By descent to the present owner.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donald J. Hagerty's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's works.
CONDITION
Excellent - Relined - Per Christie's 2008 Auction - The work was lined at the time, so we do not have an image of the original canvas reverse.
