INDIAN ART AUCTION

The Auction Of One Of Arizona's Most Important Indian Art Collections

The McCormick collection of American Indian arts, held in trust by the Valley National Bank since 1969, will be auctioned at the Del Webb TowneHouse, 100 W. Clarendon, Phoenix, Arizona, on March 15, 16, and 17, 1974.The collection was assembled by Mrs. Fowler McCormick, of Scottsdale, Arizona, over a period of thirty years with the idea of creating a museum to display the arts and crafts of her Indian friends. Being a collector of means and having an eye for quality, she was able to put together an impressive assemblage of contemporary arts and crafts and historic collector's items.

The jewelry portion of the collection is especially comprehensive. Numbering more than 350 pieces, it ranges from rare, early Navajo concha belts to the fine tortoise shell heshi of Santo Domingo Pueblo, and includes most of the forms Indian jewelry has taken since its inception. Zuni inlay, cluster, and channel work are well represented. The development of the Navajo silversmith's art can be traced in the bracelets, bow guards, bridles, concha belts, and coral, turquoise, and silver necklaces. Many pieces are of major interest, showing consummate craftsmanship and tasteful use of fine stones. Also present is a selection of atypical items, such as a silver and turquoise ice bucket and a forty-eight piece set of hand wrought silver flatware.

Navajo textiles form an important part of the collection: Classic blankets, early dresses, Transitional eye-dazzlers, Two Grey Hills rugs, a handsome group of vegetal dyed rugs in unused condition, old Yei rugs - a total of more than 80 examples ranging in time from the 1870's to the 1950's. In addition, there is a selection of Hopi kilts, sashes, and shawls.

Southwest Indian basketry is represented by over 70 jars, bowls, and plaques of the Apache, Pima, Yavapai, Hopi, and Chemehuevi tribes. The quality level is generally quite high of special note are a number of large figured Apache grain barrels (one of them polychrome) and shallow bowls up to 25" in diameter.

The Indian paintings section consists of 61 works by such well-known artists as Pablita Velarde, Ma-Pe-Wi, Popovi Da, Leon Gaspard, Tsihnahjinnie, Pop Chalee, Woody Crumbo, and others, and includes some important examples.

Unfortunately, space permits only a brief mention of the remaining categories. Plains and Woodlands beadwork: pipe bags, "burial" moccasins, dresses, coats (including a rare Crow scout coat), bandolier bags, etc., of the Sioux, Apache, Crow, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Chippewa a total of 70 items both old and recent. Kachina dolls: more than 40 of assorted types and ages.

The 845 lots to be auctioned are described in detail in a 96 page official catalog illustrated with more than 90 color and black and white photographs. The high quality level and comprehensive nature of these items will make the catalog a good reference work, especially since most pieces have either a collected date or circa, and it will make an equally good price guide. To obtain a copy, send $5.50 (postage included), check or M.O. payable to the order of The McCormick Catalog, to either of the auction managers listed below: R. L. Cleland Pueblo One - Indian Arts 3815 N. Brown Avenue Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 Robert Ashton, Jr. Pajarito American Indian Art P.O. Box 1944 Taos, New Mexico 87571 The auction price list will be available after March 20, 1974, for $2.00.

ARIZONA IN COLOR

The latest in the Profiles of America books from Hastings House, Publishers, Inc., of New York is ARIZONA IN COLOR by Carlos Elmer. The 96 page hard cover volume includes 32 full-page color photographs by the author and his son, Frank Elmer, both of whom are contributors to ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine.

A jet-age state in a setting of ancient natural wonders of which the Grand Canyon is only one, Arizona is attracting settlers from all over the country, and visitors from all over the world. The state's contrasts are dramatic; the desert with its tall Saguaros, Joshua trees and blossoming cacti is balanced by vast forests to the north, and the great dams have produced vast lakes with their recreational opportunities.

From the mysterious "Old Ones" who built the monumental Casa Grande to the astronauts who use Sunset Crater for moon simulation, the people of Arizona have shaped a unique history, and the evidences attract thousands each year.

Old Phoenix and Tucson are still there, plus a few old mining towns for the nostalgia fans - Arizona has everything, as shown by Carlos Elmer's enticing text and spectacular color photography.

Readers not having ready access to book stores may obtain copies directly from the author at $4.95 plus 60 cents shipping charge by addressing Carlos H. Elmer, Box 875, Scottsdale, Arizona 85252. Arizona residents please add 20¢ per copy sales tax.

All net proceeds from such direct sales have been pledged by the author to funds established in his home town, Kingman, to assist widows and fatherless children (37 children) bereft by the tragic events of July 5, 1973, when 12 of Kingman's finest men, nearly all volunteers, gave their lives in heroic defense of their community, fighting a propane tank car fire.

ARIZONA ARIZONA IN COLOR IN COLOR by Carlos Elmer PROFILES OF AMERICA Ninth in the series PROFILES OF AMERICA

$495 Found in bookstores throughout the United States. Published simultaneously by Hastings House, New York and Saunders, of Toronto, Ltd., Don Mills, Ontario.

DO NOT SEND MONEY TO ARIZONA HIGHWAYS MAGAZINE

To counterbalance life's reality I need these ten things to survive 1 to receive love 2 to give love 3 to communicate with eyes of depth, warmth and honesty 4 to hear laughter and music 5 to touch a responsive hand. 6 to stand erect, open and free 7 to work 8 to express myself 9 to search 10 in an environment of quietude and Serenity

THE MIND MAGNIFIES MINUTIA TO MONUMENTALS

A true artist isn't necessarily the painter, the poet, the sculptor, the musician, etc. He may be a man quietly wending his way thru life, only he is set apart from the mass of humanity by his insight into the nature of things, and his search for “reasons why” has brought him higher on the human scale of things.

Friendship is the ability to be vulnerable enough to receive another. THINK OF ALL THE THOUGHTS IN YOU JUST WAITING TO BE THOUGHT A SMILE GIVES THAT WHICH NOTH ING ELSE CAN GIVE BEA UTY

TREE OF THE DESERT

It asks for little sustenance, This wasteland-tempered tree. But waits the sun's beneficence To spread a filigree Of golden-green foliage on a breeze Of sunflame that would sere The leaves of greener, prouder trees. And yet the semi-sheer And delicately faded lace Worn by the grave mesquite Shelters the desert's tired face, Impervious to heat. And when mesquite leaves so chastely go, Disdaining color riot, Imperceptibly they flow Into the desert quiet.

UNTIL

Until the wisdom of yellowed leaves has filled his mind Until the power of rock-walled canyons has strengthened his heart Until the restless beat of oceans echoes in his soul, man is not ready for this fierce infinity All else is prelude to this thundering crescendo of the desert! A soul that once has heard this music, becomes the shell for its insistent theme until all rhythms cease man... and Diety... and desert one until

MEMORIES

The desert land is steeped with memories Of other days of drought and war and want; But times of peaceful living too, before The modern industries came in to haunt The Reservation's wide expanse with new And ever changing scenes. The big oil wells Disturb the resting places of the proud Old warriors. And the new gas pipe line tells The secrets of the ruins it invades. The ghosts no longer sleep in quietness, But walk abroad at night in frightened groups, Resentful of advancing man's duress. The far away, forgotten places still Should be immune to beat of alien will.

ILLUMINATED LANDSCAPE

Rain-quickened, now the desert looms In sudden splendor. Vibrant blooms Invite the moth and bee to share This opulence of royal fare. Mesas doff their sober dress For hues so bright they effloresce Chartreuse, cerise, magenta, gold That only these sandy wastes unfold. O golden land! O rainbow morn When blossoms crown each burning thorn!

Yours Sincerely

The picturesque is related more closely with natural, charming and roman-tic objects real or unreal. Fairies, mermaids and angels are picturesque but they are scarcely ideal or real.

The measure of great art today is not set by the degree of pure naturalness set upon canvas.

One who neither alters outward forms, nor adds things drawn from his own mind, is a copyist, a painter, or merely a craftsman.

Perfect truth, clearness and transparency, no matter how expertly executed, are sterile of creative quality.

A place, an object, or a person may be beautiful, romantic and sublime without being picturesque.

The ideal is what we wish a thing to be, something which attracts the mind with a quality of harmony, exemplified in art, perhaps, by a Madonna of Raphael's.

Compare it with the finest portrait of Van Dyke, who documented with a line-for-line, hair-for-hair still life in a sort of death mask image.

Raphael painted a soul into his Madonnas and one can contemplate for hours upon what it is that gives the ideal character to the Madonna's expression.

Here art appreciation becomes a mutual exchange of sensitivities between the artist and the viewer.

It's a long way from "September Morn" to Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Andy Warhol and Fritz Scholder.

In presenting art and artists we cannot be judges, policemen or executioners. Contemporary art especially is not yet ready to be judged into its proper place in the cosmos of everlasting masterpieces.

We seem to be living during a time in history when truth is seldom picturesque and seldom ideal. Our society is being blasted, bombarded and smashed with "the public is entitled to know the truth," no matter what the costs and the casualties.

The words truth and real have become difficult to define, analyze and evaluate.

To say that Andy Warhol's painting of a Campbell's soup can is an expression of truth and is real art qualifies as true or false according to what is realistic in our time, memory and society.

To state that the interlaced, nervous patterns of a Jackson Pollock painting typify the real art of our time is to recognize the realistic general emotional condition of the period. True, of course, though not necessarily beautiful or picturesque or ideal.

To state that Fritz Scholder's portrayal of a "drunken Indian" or "Massacre at Wounded Knee" is real and true art merely qualified only part of the truth as seen by the artist and as seen by many viewers.

The artist of integrity is not pledged to portray only the beautiful and the sunny side of truth which in art is defined as "telling it as it is." The shadow side of truth is also part of the record of mankind's journey.

Truth is not all the love of good, and the yearning after grace and beauty. Whether or not the art of Warhol, Picasso, Pollock and Fritz Scholder will stand with the masterpieces of Corregio, Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian and others depends upon whether or not these are the ideal times of world history, or as they say on the billboards "The Real Thing."

No artist should be asked to defend or explain his statement which is the testimony of his exposure to life. No scholar or an expert in art need feel inferior or lacking in eruditeness if they do not understand what others feel is a masterpiece. The surest way to destroy our human quality is to be "with it" in order to appreciate and live with a painting, book or activity. A certain degree of attitude adjustment and tolerance in the spirit of social understanding is almost necessary. Beyond this our minds and souls must be true to our individual measure of human quality and this is an art unto itself. Trees and shrubs cluster close to the water's edge while stately Saguaros stand serene on the rocky desert slopes of Sabino Canyon ... all part of the unique charm in the land northeast of Tucson.

BACK COVER