Journey to a Far Country

Journey

No passport is needed to reach the Far Country. Though painter Philip C. Curtis is its creator-historian and, in a sense, official guide, he issues no passports, no tickets, no roadmaps. As he admits, he has no such authority. The journey to Curtis' domain is one that must be taken alone, unencumbered by ritual, restriction or studied notions on local color or custom.

It is not a strange land as much as it is “unstrange,” for everything in the Far Country appears familiar and remembered, quite often painfully so. Perhaps it's the sensation that we've been here before, or the feeling that this is our eventual native land that causes the Far Country to be possessed of an aura that compels our once undertaken travel to continue. It is not easy to turn back, though some do. Nor is it easy to move quickly, though some invariably race through the countryside in a frantic haste to return to a place they know better. There is, too, something in the Far Country that suggests that once inside its borders (if it has borders), return may not be possible.

The citizens are not particularly hospitable here. If someone wishes to visit they make no objection, but invi-

To A Far Country The Art of PHILIP C. CURTIS

tations are rarely, if ever, proffered. The Far Country is one that seems to make a fetish of subduing passions. Rarely do its nationals speak above a whisper. Even when the barely audible murmurs are recognized listeners never seem to agree on what is being said. Their clothing is odd, mostly from a bygone era, yet not so distant that we can't place the period. If the visitor or tourist is young the garments may conjure up like apparel seen on grandparents. Middle-aged or older and the long dresses and dark suits, flowered hats and high buttoned shoes recall mothers and fathers, some aunt or uncle. Children in the Far Country seldom run and play, and though many of its people appear musically inclined, their music is muted, atonal, haunting. Some horns and drums are likely to give off no sound whatsoever. It is a land of things unspoken rather than things said. Clocks have no hands; timelessness is the measure of space. Bearded patriarchs gather but they have no communion, Victorian ladies walk nowhere with parasols when there is no sun, or play odd games on the desert oblivious to child-like creatures who contemplate suspiciously. A scenery flat showing the caboose of an ornate train, with a child aboard desperately trying to reach a group of people who know she is moving farther and farther away from them, sails by. In in the shade of a monstrous tree an old man and woman sit in dignity and silence, saying nothing. Perhaps they realize it has all been said. An animal that could be a bear, but probably isn't, sits, chained, by an icy young woman in a grove of stark trees. And everywhere in the Far Country billboards fade and peel, while the tundra stretches out in all directions to the accompaniment of a melody no one has written, but is vaguely recognizable. Is the Far Country a no man's land or is it Everyman's? There is a danger in relating the work of an artist to his personality, or attempting to do so. Sometimes the work is stimulating, exciting and vivid, while the artist himself gives the impression of being devoid of the very qualities that make his work live. Conversely the creation may be dull, lacking in color, insipid in the extreme, while the artist appears vibrant and challenging. Since the paintings of Philip C. Curtis, dismissing for the moment their technical aspects, are odd and enticing, or frightening and disturbing, depending on individual reaction, what sort of a man is this painter? He is first of all a quiet man. Gentle with no loss of shrewd perception. His voice is soft. He is not a cru-

TIM KELLY

Tim Kelly has been an Arizona resident for the past seven years, except for an 18-month lapse he spent in Europe. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he holds a Master's Degree in Communicative Arts from Boston's Emerson College. He spent some time in the fields of teaching, television and public relations before deciding to devote full time to his writing. A free lancer, journalist and drama critic, his varied short stories, articles and criticisms have seen print in widely diversified publications both here and abroad. He is a contributing editor for Phoenix's POINT WEST magazine, where his theatre reports are a monthly feature. Kelly is the author of several mystery thrillers (THE BURNING MAN, WIDOW'S WALK, MURDER ON ICE) and stage plays. His 14th-Century drama of France, A DARKER FLOWER, was seen last season at New York's Pocket Theatre. His interests, apart from writing, include traveling and all aspects of the entertainment world. Kelly, thirty and a bachelor, is currently working on a new novel, THE KILLER'S COMEDY, which has as its setting, fittingly enough, his adopted home-town of Phoenix.

Members of the Philip C. Curtis Trust: seated, left to right, Mrs. John C. Pritzlaff, Jr., Mrs. Oliver B. James, Jerome H. Louchheim, Jr., Mrs. Franz G. Talley, and the artist. Standing, left to right, Lewis J. Ruskin, Thomas D. Darlington, Read Mullan, and Edward Jacobson. Other members of the Trust not present at this meeting: Mrs. G. Robert Herberger and Walter Bimson.

Sadder, social critic, nor for that matter a controversial figure. It is always possible with an artist like Curtis to attribute far more to his work than he is willing to admit. In a painting like Wait at Noon, John Russell, art critic for the London Sunday Times, finds a liberal note of sardonic criticism: ". the oddly assorted figures look like a vaudeville act that has got stranded in the desert. Closer inspection suggests, however, that they are unknown to one another for none seeks the others' opinion of their predicament. Watches are consulted, fists clenched, empty palms turned upwards, empty pockets rummaged as the storm birds wheel nearer and nearer. The clown turns out to be a priest, from the shoulders downward; the jumbo Vice President can't make out why his Cadillac hasn't turned up on time; the summer straw hat doesn't at all fit the occasion, and the lapel badge stands for Nothing as the party waits for the world to start moving in their direction." Similarly a group of wildly assorted characters in another work act out their private charades, disinterested in one another while, in the background, a house is afire. The symbolism in both these works is obvious, but to any given interpretation of his paintings Curtis is likely to supply a single attitude: "I prefer to have my work speak for itself. I dislike labels. Some call me a surrealist. My things are based pretty much on what I have felt and seen of life. I use symbols that mean something to me. Sometimes these symbols mean the same thing to other people, sometimes not, but I do not wish to tell anyone who looks at one of my paintings what they must or should see. I leave it to them." Curtis is in his mid-fifties, his hair is approaching total whiteness and it's thinning fast. The expression cast on his face is thoughtful, reflective and kind. He moves about slowly with the aid of a cane necessitated by arthri-tis and remains stooped in posture. He admits he's lax in keeping up with his therapy and to prove it an English bike has dropped in neglect beside his driveway waiting like an object from one of his paintings, or that fabled "Little Toy Soldier, red with rust," who waits faithfully for a playmate who never comes. Curtis' home, which he rents and shares with two Siamese Toms, Gus and Clarence, sits on an eighteenacre spread in the town of Scottsdale. It consists of a sizable living room-studio, tiny kitchen, bedroom and a large enclosed front porch. The address, Cattle Track, was once a cattle and sheep trail that reached to Flagstaff. He rarely listens to the radio and has no TV, Hi-fi or stereo set.

There are many adjectives that can be applied to Curtis: introspective, retiring, acceptive, but their application is used in the best sense of true meaning.

"I would rather listen than talk," and his reply to a stimulating conversation or one that has somehow intrigued him is very likely to show up on canvas. Curtis speaks by and through his art.

GROUP PORTRAIT EROSION

He works every day, if possible, usually for a minimum of six to seven hours. He begins early, painting by a large patio window that allows a good north light. A slow worker, he creates carefully, almost cautiously, letting each selected symbol he chooses to employ find its proper resting place on the canvas.

It wouldn't be difficult to say that Curtis has much about him that strikes the casual observer as being sad, a quality that very often predominates in his paintings.

And it has been said of him: "There's something hauntingly beautiful in the man's soul. He carries with him a constant sadness about the state of the human person. His escape into the dream of his paintings is almost one of carrying those of his friends who are sad and troubled with him."

He takes a detached view of life, observing and studying those things that attract his imagination, and he has no hesitation in frankly stating that he has slight interest in the work of his contemporaries. His creations are of and by himself, detached to such an extent that one finds it not difficult to imagine that Curtis came upon his house on the Scottsdale desert, found it stocked with paint, canvas, brushes and assorted supplies and thus began to paint.

He has created such an individual approach to his work that a Curtis can be identified instantly by the most casual observer. There is no essence in art not allied, closely, with skilled craftsmanship. Although his subject matter predominates, Curtis is recognized equally well in close art circles for his technical proficiency. No one is likely to mistake a Curtis work for that of another. To a statement like " one of the few painters people two hundred years from now will look at and say 'He was one of the great painters of his time,' " Curtis is likely to show no overt reaction. Just as much of what is found in his work is passive and acceptive, Philip C. Curtis, the man, exhibits the same tendencies, but both qualities, strangely enough, are energized on canvas resulting in startling masterworks.

Curtis is fully aware that much of his work disturbs people. Yet the apprehension some experience is not so much of horror or shock as it is of disquietude. His paintings cannot physically terrify as many of the works of, say, Ivan and Malvin Albright, can and do. Curtis does not relate tales of expressive horror, nor does he dress his landscape with astro-lunar connotations in the vein of an artist like Darrel Austin. Some may argue there is something of a subdued Hieronymous Bosch in his work but if any connecting link between such artists as these is to be forged it is likely to be one of escape from a demanding factual world.

"I always feel a bit distressed when people react to one of my paintings in a way that indicates they fear the subject matter is getting too close. I think people should be able to face up to anything. It does no good to hide fears, repress emotions, or try to escape from life. Perhaps that's what disturbs some. They see something

HOLIDAY

In one of my paintings that says there is no escape.

It should come as no surprise that psychiatrists are numbered with the staunchest admirers of Curtis' work. Once one refused to purchase a painting he wanted because it troubled him so. The work was entitled The Cage. A woman, more of a dressmaker's dummy than a human being, body formed by metallic ribs, is shown holding a child prisoner within her framework. Over a year passed before Curtis heard from the man, until one morning he received a phone call. The psychiatrist was in the valley for a short vacation: "I couldn't sleep last night. Then I dropped off and dreamt. I've finally figured out what that painting means to me." Means to me is what Curtis likes to hear. He paints for private reaction. Each person must or should, in Curtis' philosophy, experience his own interpretation or feeling.

His work is often called surrealistic: delving into the world of paranoia and special fantasy, but others say this of Curtis. His reply to the categorizing: "I don't say what I am really, because I don't care."

Curtis, for all his tolerance and reticence, is a fiercely independent man; he wishes to be beholden only to himself and to his art.

He has created his own world to interpret. One restricted and universal at the same time. It is impossible to study his creations and not feel that they would make provocative stage settings for what is currently Called "Theatre of the Absurd," plays that suspend reality and exist in a curious vacuum of their own. William Faulkner created Yoknapatawpha County and peopled it with his own symbols, mostly families: Snopes, Maillisons, De Spains, Varners. Frank L. Baum did it with the Land of Oz. A Cowardly Lion, Tin Woodman or Scarecrow would be right at home in a Curtis work.

Many of the symbols employed by this artist are recurrent and he doesn't disguise the fact. Children especially are favored, sometimes the same faces appear in several paintings, but they are not so much children as they are "little people" miniature adults and as such possessed of good and evil, fully capable of turning from some innocent game and, in Curtis' own words, tearing you to pieces."

He admits he is somewhat terrified by the birth explosion, a fear that has definitely found expression in much of his work.

Arizona has been the home of this most unique artist since shortly after World War II, although he spent some time in the state in the mid-thirties. He was born in Jackson, Michigan, a cold country, if not a far one.

"I've never been attracted to cold climates and I have never been able to do anything with snow in my paintings."

When he was sixteen, on a hunting trip, he fell

through thin ice covering a pond. The following morn-ing he awoke with a peculiar sensation and was confined to bed for a year. Arthritis.

Curtis' father was a judge concerned primarily with juvenile cases.

"My father always had a serious view of life. I suppose I've been greatly influenced by his outlook. I like people and I guess about the only thing I truly dislike are expressions of any kind of hate, chauvinistic hate, any blind cruel force."

His life in Jackson offered no overwhelming advantages to a budding art student. Actually, outside of a passing interest in sketching and drawing, the world of a painter and painting were only remotely considered. Like his father, the attorney's life lay ahead. Curtis received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Albion Col-lege, then went on to study for law at the University of Michigan. This pursuit lasted exactly one year.

"I wasn't a good student, I'm afraid. In fact in so many words they told me if I didn't return they'd give me my credits. Something like generous blackmail. Actually I thought I might like to be a writer. I know now that if I had followed that impulse my writings would be like my paintings."

With the country in the throes of a depression, it took more than courage to decide on a switch from law to art. But for Curtis the national economic conditions were not to enter the field of consideration. He spent a year as a court clerk in Jackson, then went on to Yale. If he wasn't exactly disenchanted with his schoolingthere, he hardly found what he was after. "I never have made up my mind as to what an art school should be. They allowed you to go as fast as you could and I managed to get third-year painting in my first two semesters."

His Yale Period lasted three years.

"I was in New York in '35. The depression was in full-swing, but I was lucky enough to get a job in the mural division of a WPA project. There was something I wanted to find, something I was reaching for, that I couldn't get at art school. For one thing, I was trying to find out what was really happening in art. At Yale I got the Renaissance and I think, if I remember correctly, the last painter of talent they recognized was Reubens."

During this period the Federal Government began to set up art centers throughout the country, for the two-fold purpose of giving work to artists and bringing art to the nation.

"Phoenix was one of the cities selected for such a center. I applied for the job of directing the operation and got it.

"I liked Arizona after I got used to it. When I first arrived it impressed me as being a dry, burned-out place, but I grew to appreciate its values. This state has, for me, a most interesting time and space arrangement. It's easy in a state like Arizona for the painter to symbolize. It's not necessary for him to translate. I used to get my sketch book and take trips with no clear destination in mind. I'd sketch the trees, abandoned houses, ghost towns, which have always been a source of fascination for me. Take a town like Jerome. Here's a whole cycle of life compressed in a few brief years, a quick beginning and end, birth, life and death. I can see it, experience it, and attempt to capture the impression almost in a single motion."

During this time, Curtis became acquainted with the late Frank Lloyd Wright, a man he much admires (a photograph of Wright is prominently displayed in Curtis' home) and the Bauhaus group: Artists in pre-Nazi Germany who broke with formalism in the arts, while seeking a new way of looking at architecture, painting and scuplture.

The encounter gave Curtis an insight and interest in diversified materials and functional design and he ventured into the area of furniture design.

Curtis left Arizona in 1939. This time Des Moines, Iowa, caught his attention. Another art center. "Unfortunately, for me, I was always troubled about making a living with my art. I guess every artist experiences the same thing. I wanted to paint, do nothing but paint, yet I kept putting it off, figuring I'd live forever."

After Iowa, another country that blends easily with the Far Country of Curtis imagination, came a sojourn at Harvard for a course in museum training, a recollection that now easily brings an impish grin to Curtis face. "I didn't get far with that museum business. The war was on and that decided things for me. For awhile, anyway. I couldn't get into the service, but I did manage to get into the OSS. I did what they called then 'visuals, perhaps they still call them that: Maps, animations, training aids.

"I was in Washington until the end of the war, thinking, all this time, that if I was going to paint, I'd better get started. It was a good feeling for me, to decide, no matter what, I was going to paint and live for painting."

Curtis returned to the Valley of the Sun in 1947, his decision to return based on two prime factors: The dry climate that some years before he had found unfriendly relieved, somewhat, his arthritic condition, and the terrain maintained a kind of probing fascination for him that today finds reflection in much of his creativity.

There is an inevitable question regarding Curtis' work which asks in one form or another how his subject matter came to be so imaginative, subconsciously sensitive and genuinely bizarre.

To this inquiry Curtis has made the reply, "If I could explain it, there would be no need to paint it."

His Scottsdale return found his work somewhat conventional if compared to his current trend, but it gave a hint of what was likely to follow, "I painted rather unrealistic landscapes. Not as real as what I'm doing presently. Subject matter was not as important as now, but the seeds were there. Waiting."

Curtis' first one-man show was held not in the Phoenix area but in San Francisco. At the Museum of Art in 1948. Participation at the Wehye Gallery in New York followed and his work appeared in many national and regional jury shows throughout the country.

"What was on display in the San Francisco show was aiming, I think, at what I'm doing today. There was some interest shown, the critics were considerate, but the sales were meager."

Alfred Frankenstein reviewed the show for the San Francisco Chronicle: "Curtis distills a very personal manner . . . the sense of pattern, organization, and crisp controlled technique is most delightful. There is something slightly arch and toy-like about his work." There may have been something arch about Curtis' work then, but there is certainly nothing arch about the man. His personal attitudes toward life are direct: It is a serious business. Birth is a responsible and unfortunate accident. Groping for the answers to existence is unavoidable, whether on a conscious or subconscious plane. Man is possessed by a feeling of uneasiness, a floating anxiety is ever with him.

Curtis knows what reactions such viewpoints are likely to have on the less sophisticated taste or the squeamish, although such a philosophical outlook would seem to indicate a forbidden individual, nothing could be less exact.

As an artist, Philip C. Curtis sets his view on life in motion and lets it carry him along into the regions of the Far Country.

Yet Curtis the man would frighten no one. He is immensely likeable and charming and not at all like the image one might have of the painter of such extraordinary works as Farewell, The Concert, The Voyage, and Fight.

In print his statements are forceful enough, but in making them he takes a long, long time. Almost as if the idea has been carefully worked out inwardly in signs and symbols, to such an extent his words can't seem to convey their fullest intent.

"I don't think I've ever overlooked tenderness. I've tried not to. I feel empathy with most of the people I put on canvas, and I like to think I keep a sense of humor."

The humor indicated is ultra-personal here, too. It is absurd humor, incisive, double-edged, dangerous. The exact opposite of the painter's apparent personality. A hearse, a horrifying mode of transportation, perhaps on its way to Boot Hill or on its way back, has broken down. No one bothers with it and it falls slowly to neglect. The title, First Class.

One aspect of life and personal relationship is distinguished by its almost total absence in Curtis' work: Love. Rarely do the characters, and in his paintings they are characters as much as they are figures, touch one another, seldom do they communicate expressively. Emotional struggles are offered directly to the mind. They are decidedly non-violent in presentation, however.

"I have never knowingly fallen into the trap of sentimentality. I don't much believe in that. Sentiment, yes. I like sentiment in my work. I like it in life. I like it in people, but sentimentality, no."

If the intensity, the calm strength, found in Curtis' work springs from an intensity within the painter, he conceals it with an alarmingly deceptive self-assuredness. Hauteur is absent in Curtis' personality, so are malice, brittle qualities, any trace of demeaning. He's a gentleman and if the mixture of a man's personality and the personality of his art are to be intermingled, the requesting answer can only be indecipherable.

A moderate drinker and smoker, his social life is nominal and appreciated, his work life regulated and constant.

There is much about him that reminds one of "Mr. Chips," something, also, of an aging Peter Pan. To all such observations, Curtis is likely only to nod or smile. His world is his alone and if we wish to share it, or a part of it, that is our concern. Analyzing, digging for the answers, trying to discover "what sort of man is Curtis"

leads eventually to one cul-de-sac: His art speaks for itself, created for a private world, from a private world.

"I have found what I want in Arizona. Arizona. I travel around whenever I'm able. I don't view junk as junk. I like things that have been used, that have experienced. Inanimate objects go through a life cycle. Arizona has many unusual sights that stimulate my imagination, an old house in Tempe, a tree by an arroyo, a forgotten saddle. A painting like Wait at the Station, showing a dilapidated railroad stop with people waiting endlessly is actually an old station existing in Patagonia, Santa Cruz County. The Little Daisy does exist. It's a faded remnant of a hotel in the ghost town of Jerome. The decaying building in The Fall is also located in Jerome, and the tiny cemetery in Trail Mark exists north of Prescott in the Camp Woods area.

His work is demanding and commanding increasing interest and recognition. In large part due to a venture quite unique in Arizona's art life.

In the past, Curtis had a continuing difficulty in amassing enough of his works to exhibit for a showing. He sold his paintings, for modest sums, whenever he could and as fast as he could for reasons of day-to-day existence.

The venture began some three years ago, when Lewis J. Ruskin, a friend of Curtis, and art connoisseur, brought some acquaintances to Cattle Track in hopes that they would be intrigued by Curtis' work and make a purchase. They were indeed intrigued but couldn't decide on a selection, although most of the day had been spent at lunch and viewing the works.

"It caused me to brood a little," Ruskin recalled, "I resented his having to spend so much time selling." Also, he knew Philip was arthritic and his productive years might be limited.What to do! Ruskin, a student of the history of art, recalled the 'Golden Days of Art' when interested and influential people became patrons of artists and supplied them with the necessities of life and took them in their care. Why couldn't a modern counter-part of this idea be the solution?

With this thought in mind, Ruskin approached nine other Arizonans and suggested that they put up a sufficient amount of money into a Trust Fund for three years. During this time, Curtis would have nothing to do but paint. No paintings would be for sale, and the worries of making a sale would be removed. The Trust Fund would pay his expenses: Food, rent, clothing, automobile, art materials and enough to live comfortably. Close to the end of the three-year period, a showing of Curtis' work would be presented.

Critics would receive invitations, a book of reproductions would be printed, all in the design that his reputation would extend beyond the borders of his regional reputation. (The Show was actually presented at the Phoenix Art Museum in March, 1963.) If at the end of the period, sufficient paintings were sold to repay the amount expended, these investors would receive their money back. If there were not, then the balance would be forgiven. Each member contributing to the Fund would also be able to purchase a work at the end of the period for a nominal amount. The friends that Ruskin approached, Walter R. Bimson, Thomas D. Darlington, Mrs. G. Robert Herberger, Edward Jacobson, Mrs. Oliver B. James, Jerome H. Louchheim, Jr., Read Mullan, John C. Pritzlaff, Jr., and Mrs. Franz G. Talley, thought this a good idea. All were impressed by Curtis' work and wanted to help.

Curtis says, "When I was first presented with the idea, I wasn't sure I understood it. I was suspicious. Perhaps because it sounded too good. I didn't want to be beholden to anyone. I want to be free to do my work, but I had nothing to worry about. The ten were investing in me, not patronizing me."

Curtis' normal yearly output was slight. Ten oils a year at the most, but during the three years he was freed from economic problems, he did seventy and in the opinion of Ruskin, "They are the finest he has done."

The plan has worked out admirably. The Curtis show was of sufficient importance to attract the attention of E. Coe Kerr, Jr., President of the Knoedler Gallery of New York City, who has agreed to represent Curtis in the future.

Because of these favorable factors, his work is becoming recognized as important, but on Cattle Track, no great change has taken place in the life of Philip Curtis. He continues to paint what he feels, he reacts kindly to what whirls about him in the outside world. In his detached, kindly way, he goes about his business, a unique artist, a quiet man.

It has been written of him, "Philip Curtis is, in the English sense, a gentleman in his art; he never tells us what to feel, and he never suggests that he has felt more than we do."

A Far Country does it for him.

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER CINERAMA

The winning of the West, one of the most colorful chapters in the American saga, has been told and retold, and yet the telling never grows old. Countless of learned scholars have ground out countless of volumes of fact on the subject and still more countless of storytellers have ground out still more countless of volumes of fiction telling and retelling the romantic tale. If all the books ever written on the story of America's West were put into one library it would be a very, very big library indeed.

The story has been told in song and ballad all the way from opera (Girl of the Golden West) to the corniest of hoe-downs. Probably some of the whistlingest tunes you know carry a Western theme.

The American West has been a standby for motion picture makers almost since the Silver Screen came into being. Cherished memories from our own youth revolve around names like William S. Hart and Tom Mix, and their wonderful shoot-em-ups.

And now the magic makers of Hollywood have come up with a classic that truly merits the time-worn adjectives "colossal" and "stupendous" in the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer Cinerama production How The West Was Won.

The word "Cinerama" is probably old hat to many of our readers living in the larger cities in this country and in Europe but to us in Arizona it is comparativelynew. The last we heard there were only fifty-two Cinerama Theatres in this country and twenty-six abroad; so we know that Cinerama will eventually be a new experience to many of our readers living in less populous parts of this planet.

But what is "Cinerama?"

Cinerama is a means of talking, recording, and projecting pictures so that the audience feels it is actually participating in the action of the film itself.

The Cinerama camera has three lenses which take three pictures at the same time. These combined pictures cover the area that would be seen at one time by the human eye. The camera's viewing field is 146 degrees horizontally and 55 feet vertically.

The Cinerama sound system has seven tracks which make it possible to follow the action closely with the ears as well as with the eyes.

In the theatre, three projectors throw the film on an ingenious curved louvered screen. Specially designed loudspeakers bring the sound realistically to the audience.

It took the late Fred Waller, the inventor, fifteen years to perfect the Cinerama camera. To match its visual realism, Hazard Reeves Laboratories produced a seven-track, seven-channel sound system.

The first production, This Is Cinerama, opened in New York on September 30, 1952. Since that time, Cinerama Holiday and other successful features have

WEST WAS WON