GRAND CANYON,
by Hanson Duvall Puthuff, 183 x 244 cm
Born on 21 August 1875: Hanson Duvall Puthuff, US painter who died in 1972.
Born on 21 August 1875, Puthuff studied briefly
at the University of Denver Art School in 1893. Then, after a year at the Chicago
Academy of Fine Arts, Hanson Puthuff established himself in Denver in 1894 as
a commercial artist, producing signs and posters for an advertising firm. In 1903,
he moved to Los Angeles and together with art writer Antony Anderson founded the
Art Students League of Los Angeles.
During the next few years, Puthuff painted on his
own time while continuing to work for commissions, including a set of dioramas
for the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. In 1926, he retired from commercial
art to devote himself to fine art. He travelled widely in California, painting
rolling hills and canyons, as well as the High Sierras.
One of his first commissions after the decision
to quit his commercial art career in 1926 was from the Santa Fe Railroad. Puthuff
was hired to paint a series of views of the Grand Canyon which were to be used
by the railroad for promotion and advertising. Grand Canyon is a majestic
painting of monumental proportions [to which the miserable reproduction above
doesn't do justice, but it's all I found to put here, as I huff.]
Puthuff died in 1972.