Ted Degrazia Gallery In The Sun Tucson Arizona 1969-2013 #1
by David Lee Guss
Title
Ted Degrazia Gallery In The Sun Tucson Arizona 1969-2013 #1
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
While Ted DeGrazia is clearly not in the same league as such world class artists as Cezanne, da Vinci, Durer, Giotto, Giorgione, Goya, Kandinsky, Manet, Monet, Matisse, Michaelangelo, Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rothko, Rublev, Titian, Van Gogh, Velasquez or Vermeer, etc. he can more than hold his own against other painters of the American Southwest, such as Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) and Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1886).
{Dixon had a winter residence in Tucson, where he died. There is no evidence that he and Ted ever met. Ansel Adams took a mid 1940's photo of Dixon, behind a screen sitting in a porch, in Tucson. Adams also photographed the rear, north entrance to San Xavier Mission in 1968. A stunning 1974 enlarged (made by Adam's) gelatin silver print is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art In New York City}
Ted turned down a show in Cannes, France saying that "because I was born in the southwest, and live there, I live it with a passion. The state has a harsh temperament as though it were alive. It is rough, colorless, and silent. And yet, you feel a gentleness, see beauty, and color in a storm, the skies roar, the cactus of the desert in its prickly silence bursts forth for a moment of exquisite beauty."
(Critical opinions are very mixed about Ted, many labeling his work as "kitsch" and "cheesy," or that he "would be lucky to get even a footnote in the history of art." Much of his art is indeed "kitsch," but look at his finest creations done solely for himself (without his dazzling merchandising hat on) and not for the mass produced market (running into the endless thousands) of refrigerator magnets, collector's plates, bells or notecards.)
In my opinion no other artist has captured that beauty and color of the southwest more than Ted De Grazia. He was a life long smoker and died from prostate cancer. He is buried under a pile of carefully arranged stack of rocks, in the Apache way, on the grounds of his beloved Mission in the Sun.
"I was born free and I will die free."...Ted DeGrazia
"A professional artist paints with all of himself. The insides, plus your hide. When part of your hide is on the painting, only then will it be good."
Ettore "Ted" DeGracia, (1909-1982)
Uploaded
April 13th, 2014
Statistics
Viewed 142 Times - Last Visitor from Beverly Hills, CA on 03/29/2024 at 2:29 AM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
Tags
Comments
There are no comments for Ted Degrazia Gallery In The Sun Tucson Arizona 1969-2013 #1. Click here to post the first comment.