Paintings by George Frederick

Paintings by PHOTOGRAPHS OF PAINTINGS BY GEORGE FREDERICK BY THE GALBRAITH STUDIOS, MESA

GEORGE FREDERICK, whose studio is forty acres of desert 28 miles east of Phoenix and close to Superstition Mountain, is almost as much a part of the desert and as close to it as Desert Scotty.

"If there's something in reincarnation, I must have been a Southwestern Indian once upon a time," he says. "My love for the desert is deep-seated, goes beyond my intellect; hence I gave up long ago to rationalize it. I do know that I found myself in the desert in my professional activity as a painter."

The Arizona desert is a far cry from the Royal Academy of Munich, where he first began painting under the strict tutorship of such people as Lovis Corinth Boecklin and Franz von Stuck. It is also a far cry from the Arizona desert to the art schools in Chicago and New York, where George Frederick continued his education. After ten years in the East he decided to visit the West. That was in 1920. He's been here ever since.

"I came to the Southwest and found myself," he says. "Everything I have accomplished of real value I owe to the Southwest and its people. The desert equipped me not only with an emotional and inspirational content for painting, but gave me a true philosophy of life. My objective facilities became subordinated to the subjective power of the desert."

Then he continues: "Some painters get into slavery to technic and become 'stylists.' Others master technic and grow into creative artists. A man who paints the desert has to go below the surface in order to get by at all.

"The surface of the desert landscape is very restrained and the color of it, intensely subtle. The spirit of the desert is aristocratic and will not associate with the common-place and cold intellect.

"A painter must live, eat, drink and sleep the d desert--and only then will she slowly respond. However, there is no more charming mistress once the artist is on equal footing with her.

"The population of the desert, whether white, brown or red man, has also interested me as much, or even more so than the desert itself. I always feel a sort of universality about the d desert people. They seem to take on something of the mystery of the desert exceeding the very solitude and vastness of it.

"To me, the Arizona country is dramatic, the California desert, lyrical. As a painter I work between the two. We need drama and song in life, if for nothing else but to gain mastery over both.

"A distinguishing mark in all great art is "simplicity.' This is gained only by the greatest economy. A true artist selects only the essential things.

"Nature and life are full of superficial and surface detail, which clamor for attention. Hence we have a magnificient idea of little things, but only a modest one of big things.

"Art is teaching man the idea of life; to create order out of the confusion of myriad of things by selecting only the essential ones; to create: Simplicity. And it is harder to be simple than it is to be complex. This Southwest country and particularly Arizona is a true object-lesson of visual simplicity.

"The grandeur of its mountains and canyons, the sweep and variety of its desert hills, the vastness of its distances on the plains-all these things rest the eye and the spirit, because of their simplicity. There is nothing cluttered up in this great state. Everyone who comes here and explores it feels that peculiar uplift of spirit. And there are new surprises every time you see it.

"As an artist I have naturally been attracted to the descendents of an old civilization -the Indians in Arizona and the Southwest, Their nobility of poise and gesture is apparent, but their subtle sense of humor and natural wisdom of things is strangely hidden.

"I found them a deeply religious race, not in the sense of creeds, but practical spirituality. As a whole, they are a psychic people. Their art is truly original, inspired by their inner life. They do not copy; they create. The medicine men are their real leaders. They have an unconquerable faith and some have the ability to express it in words.

"I asked one one time, what he thought was the main difference between the white and red race. He said: 'Spirit tension and spirit-relaxation. The white folks are always in a hurry they always fear something or are anxious about something. Their spirit is always tense. Our people relax in spirit, be-cause we inherited and practice faith from beginning of time we pass it on not by talk, but by example.' "Old civilizations may perish, but the good in them will always remain and form a nucleus for the on-coming one. This, the Southwest Indians taught me. Like the desert, they respond only when you approach them on equal terms, with true understanding. They are children of nature and sense rather than know your sympathy or lack of it.

"In these times of world-upheaval a philosophy acquired in the desert country is thoroughly reassuring. If you doubt this take a few days off and commune with this great center, this desert heart, of the Southwest. "Get off the highways of Arizona and explore its by-ways. Sleep out under the stars just for one night or see the mighty canyons and chasms in a full moon. The chances are that you will sense the true relationship of things. You will realize that happenings in the objective world seem more profound than they really are. You will realize that the only thing that matters is the 'art of living' and that means the 'art of thinking' constructively and thus in harmony with the universe. "It is the business of the artist to bring out the greatness in life. Everyone of us is a mystery and in each of us is the creative impulse. That is the reason why art has a subtle and refining influence upon a community. "In the solitude of the desert I got rid of a lot of notions. They were educated notions about everything under the sun. The desert proved them downright silly; just magnified personality. To liberate oneself one must practice the virtues of the gods: 'Understand ing and Compassion.' " So, for George Frederick, the desert has been the patient teacher, the artist the devoted pupil. His studies of the desert and her people are simple, honest things and full of humanity and feeling. There is an understanding and a kindness that you feel in his paintings that springs from the good heart of the artist himself. You see that in the clear-eyed boy "Santiago," or in the loneliness of "Desert Station," or in the simplicity of "Southwest Mission Halls." When he approaches Nature he does so humbly. In such paintings as "New Moon on the Desert," or "Edge of the Desert" or in "Salt River" the artist portrays not only a great fidelity to the subject but also understanding and deep respect. You feel that painting isn't to him the mere ability to swish paint on a canvas. You feel that he is trying to make the (Continued on Page Forty-Four)