INSIGHT TO DE GRAZIA BY R.C.

INSIGHT TO DE GRAZIA

Many were the phases of the consummate greatness of Raymond Carlson, the distinguished Editor Emeritus of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine.

One aspect was his brilliant perceptiveness in discerning latent qualities in ordinary human beings. In many cases his judgement was contrary to so-called "experts."

When he put his faith in the soul of another an immediate cosmic polarity seemed to flow between them enriching both.

In the February 1941 edition of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine, R. C. wrote: "There appeared for exhibition in Arizona this season a group of oil paintings by a young man from Bisbee. The exhibition was entitled: "The Dust of Mexico!"

The young man from Bisbee is Ted De Grazia, a very sincere person, and one of whom you may someday hear much."

From that day to this Raymond Carlson has designated Ted De Grazia - "El Maestro."

By 1949 the young man from Bisbee had become Tucson's most promising artist. The first four-color reproductions of De Grazia's paintings appeared in the March 1949 issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine. R.C.'s text, reprinted in part, from that edition is an inadequate testimonial to Carlson's insight and to De Grazia's talents.

There is no way to evaluate the measure of enrichment bestowed upon Arizona by a relationship of trust and confidence which budded more than thirty years ago. Our readers must feel their lives have been enriched by exposure to De Grazia's works as indicated by the fact that past issues of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine, including recent ones, are rare collector's items.

How does Raymond Carlson feel about Ted De Grazia today?

In his simple but eloquent analysis - "He's a Great One."

He is always ready, and sincerely happy, to share the fruit of his hard-earned harvest. His philanthropic involvements represent a five-figure monetary fortune, amounting to what many top-flight artists consider an above-average income.

Adding the aforementioned attribute to R.C.'s appraisal of Ted De Grazia we feel that our intimate knowledge of him qualifies us to state that the quality of De Grazia, the man, more than exceeds the measure of De Grazia, the artist.

Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, the Mexican artists who sponsored his one-man show in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1942, spoke encouragingly of the paintings of Ted De Grazia of Tucson. "His paintings," said Mr. Rivera, "greatly interested me because of his bril-liant artistic gift and his personal sentiment, so original that it prevails through some strange influence, perhaps uncon-scious. The fugue in the execution of his painting, his acute romantic and exalted observation and his feeling for propor-tion give the certainty that when developed as an artist, De Grazia will become a prominent personality in American art."

Mr. Orozco wrote: "De Grazia's painting has all the freshness, simplicity and power of youth. He is able to go from simple and graceful movement to deep understanding of human misery."

First American recognition for Ted De Grazia came this January when the Gallery of Mid-20th Century Art in Los Angeles exhibited his paintings and ceramics. The critics and the public were pleased. Admirers of his work feel that it is high time this Arizona artist was being recognized, and they feel, too, that his development in recent years supports the earlier comments of Rivera and Orozco.

"When I say that I am intimately acquainted with every adobe in my studio, I mean it," says De Grazia, the builder. "I put them up. And as I have felt the need for more room, I have added another studio one for display, one for painting, one for ceramics, one for living quarters. It has all been hard work but so satisfying because I have been building and creating."

"My what attractive ruins," a visitor once exclaimed.

"Yes! All in a lifetime," De Grazia replied. Once a party of tourists stopped by and seeing De Grazia, browned by the sun, working with a shovel, asked him, "Speeka Engleesh?" "A leetle beet," Ted answered, with a twinkle in his eye. Another lady visitor wanted to know if he painted because he wore a beard, or wore a beard because he painted. "Both," he replied.

De Grazia has been called both a genius and a mad man. The truth is that he is a serious painter, desperately trying to express himself in art and color. He works with a feverish concentration, using the palette knife with wild abandon, translating his emotions into rich, striking colors.

"When people ask why I paint the pictures I paint," he explains, "I do not answer, because the paintings are my life. They are my experience. They are what I have felt and what I have known. How can I explain this in a few words? The onlooker must explain for himself. If he cannot, the painting is not for him."

Many of his subjects have been inspired by scenes in Mexico: the color, action and cruelty of a bullfight; the frenzy of fighting roosters; beggars in the street, their faces marked with poverty and suffering; the color of Tehuantepec, land of the bright jungle; the simplicity of children and their sorrow at a grave; the grace of the flower seller; the gaiety of a merry-goround. All of this is Mexico, stark and real.

The paintings of De Grazia are not "pretty." They have honesty and strength, reflecting the singularity of purpose and the integrity of a painter who has remained true to his beliefs in the face of adverse criticism and begrudging recognition.

His art work is varied and always different. Whatever he does paintings, murals, lithographs, ceramics bears the distinguishing features of the personality and talent of the artist.

Some of his best things are murals he has created in several private homes and business places in Tucson. Here his passion for color best expresses itself. Vivid, striking color patterns blend in pleasing harmony, giving an impression of greater size and airiness to the room containing them. He studied fresco technique under both Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco in Mexico, whom he considers the outstanding painters in the world today.

His lithographs are characterized by a fluidity of line and freedom of motion that bespeak of the artist's versatility in handling the tools of his trade. He sacrifices detail for airy form in them. Color, as well as form, is his major concern in his ceramics and mosaics. He is constantly searching for new color patterns to make these products distinctive. Someday, he things, his ceramics will be collectors' items. That reveals one characteristic of this engaging personality: he believes in the worth of his own work.

Genius or mad man he may be, but you can't help liking him. He'll continue to paint, make ceramics and lay adobe with equal intensity, smiling at the passing world, wondering if the people of that world will ever accept him. He'll continue to paint the way he wants to paint. He'll paint anything, even a barn, if you'll let him paint it the way he wants to. R. C.