De Grazia

LOS PERDIDOS D

From DeGrazia's Mid-Century Mexico Suite

MEDICINE CHANT

From DeGrazia's Arizona-New Mexico Indian Collection

GALLOS COMBATIENTE DeGrazia's Gallery In The Sun Collection CANCER, The Crab Left: LEO, The Lion From "DeGrazia Paints" The Signs Of The ZODIAC"

STATION II, Jesus Takes Up The Cross From "The Way Of The Cross"

The De Grazia originals, except page 4, from which the reproductions in this edition were made are from the permanent collections of De Grazia's Gallery In The Sun, Tucson, Arizona.

Buck Saunders Gallery, Scotts-dale, Arizona, is the leading recognized authenticator and appraiser of De Grazia art, and the only source of De Grazia originals.

Ground-breaking ceremonies were held in June for the De Grazia-Gonzales Art Gallery and Cultural Development Center, off Interstate 10, midway between Phoenix and Tucson. Scheduled for opening during the 1977-78 winter season with a Grand Opening retrospective exhibition of De Grazia's most important works since the late 1930's, including paintings, sculpture and ceramics.

To see the world in a grain of sand And a Heaven in a wild flower; Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour Paintings are to be seen not talked about or even written about. One must see for oneself in order to judge. Read history. Look at art. Study creative work. The rewards of learning, understanding and scrutiny will amaze even the Philistine.

Since man's beginning, the magic of painting has fascinated him. His prehistoric cave art symbolizes the primitive concern with and appreciation for color, form and meaning.

A philosophy of art has always been present in man's development-whether in the prehistoric world, classical, renaissance or modern times. Almost as precious as life itself, the contemplation and creation of art has been one of the greatest motivating forces of mankind.

What then is the purpose, nature and value of art to society? Are these not questions which have challenged man since his beginning? With so many imponderables concerning art, it may well be that this riddle accounts for the fascination, speculation and constant concern for its creation - its reason for being.

Every culture, regardless of how primitive or simple it is, has produced some kind of art. However, what has been or is being created varies in meaningful content or value to society. Since man's first painting was upon his own body, he is, therefore, the beginning and center of art with all its complexities.

Man's mentality governs his concern for creative art. His philosophy, culture or religion enable him to appreciate and appraise all forms of art. To be concerned with the creative work of artists and the development of one's personal aesthetic sense is the duty of every enlightened individual.

Originality is an important common denominator in creative activity. It is often the spark which fires genius setting apart the work of the so-called gifted from the mediocre. In most fields of human endeavor, originality plays an important role with the other basic ingredients inherent in successful accomplishments.

To the true creative artist, originality is more than a developed style. It is a philosophical concept, around which all aesthetic activities motivate and from which creativity stems.

In the world today there are literally tens of thousands who work at the business of creating fine arts. Many call themselves painters. Countless canvases are turned out in an endless effort to glorify man's ideas and these troubled decades. Not all of them are bad, but few are original. Seldom before have so many people painted so much and yet created so little.

Artistic know-how is everywhere in evidence. Color, form, design and craftsmanship stimulate much comment, even criticism. Art has become a great con-versation piece. The government has sponsored careers in art. Foundations, universities, colleges and schools of all kinds have competed in producing artists as well as developing greater appreciation for and interest in fine arts.

versation piece. The government has sponsored careers in art. Foundations, universities, colleges and schools of all kinds have competed in producing artists as well as developing greater appreciation for and interest in fine arts.

Are the results worthwhile? After a quarter of a century of artistic controversy, are we in the Western World more enlightened and gratified? Have we really appreciated our aboriginal heritage of art, cherishing it so as to instruct and inspire those who would add new dimensions to American art?

Despite all the new wonders of the 20th century, it is difficult for most everyone to understand what creates a truly great artist. What comprises aesthetic achievement? What makes a masterpiece? The basic ingredients of artistic accomplishments have changed little since man's beginning time and civilization have made individual creativity more and more difficult. In today's complex world the true creative artist is more harassed than ever before. A society as stereotyped, mechanical and mediocre as ours today may frustrate many creative people, but cannot greatly damage the real master of original creativity. The roots of art remain the same. The truly outstanding artist has usually had a difficult time. He has always had to pay a great price for his original concept and matchless ability.

It has been said that the real master can never be a disciple. In examining the lives and works of great painters, the truth of this statement is evident in any masterpiece. Contemporary master works are difficult to find even though every place and every age add something to the reservoir of inspiring art.

Out of the land and atmosphere of the American Southwest has come an extraordinary painter. He is an Arizonan as special, as different from other artists as Arizona is different from her sister states. His is a spirit reflecting the unequaled qualities of the sun, sand and sky which make the Southwest the enchanted area of the United States of America. He is regional yet universal - he is timely yet timeless. As an artist and painter, he is a paradox and paragon. He is an impressionist. He is an abstractionist. He is a realist. He is a captivating artist.

His is a captivating art.

DeGrazia was born in Morenci, Arizona, in 1909. His father was a copper miner. He attended the public schools of Morenci and at the age of eleven went with his family to Italy where he lived for five years. The DeGrazia family returned to Morenci where he finished his grammar and high school education. He was twenty-three years of age when he received his diploma. Later, he went to the University of Arizona where he received his two B.A. degrees one in music and one in art. He later received an M.A. degree, his thesis being "The Relation of Color to Sound."

What does one see in a DeGrazia drawing, sketch, watercolor or painting? What makes his art so different, daring and distinctive? Why has his work caused such sensation? What is there about this artist that has stimulated so much discussion?

The answer to these questions lies in a careful scrutiny and appraisal of DeGrazia's work. His drawings, his paintings, his stories, his booklets, so philosophically written and sensitively illustrated, reveal the man. To judge the work of an artist, it is helpful to first understand his nature and character. In retrospect, this is often difficult to do. Today we must accept appraisals of the past concerning great artists in history, while their works are left to speak for themselves. Written records are often biased, incomplete or inaccurate.

DeGrazia's philosophy of life, simple as it may be, has produced an exceedingly adequate, sensitive and discerning artist. His sincere dedication to basic humanistic principles gives his creations an authenticity which is lacking in most creative work produced in the world today. Far from being eremitic, DeGrazia is a man of the world and basically an honest human being as well. It is natural, then, that since he is a man of aesthetic preoccupation, his work would have certain extraordinary manifestations which set it apart from the plethora of ordinary artistic endeavors.

The simple elegance of his drawings, his brilliant unorthodox colors, the nature of his composition, attest to his imagination, originality and subtlety. They are his particular marks of distinction - something new under the sun.

This meaningful panorama re-echoes with melodic qualities, attesting to the value of DeGrazia's studies concerning the relation of color to sound which indicates the usefulness of his important work in this interesting dimension of aesthetic consideration. Creative art would benefit if more painters explored the significance of this relationship.

DeGrazia's creativity is closely linked to his respect for Indo-American art. In his work one senses his appreciation of the aboriginal pictographs and petroglyphs which are found throughout his native land. The simplicity and directness of his drawings and sketches are related to the aboriginal art of Arizona and northern Mexico. They communicate with the viewer in the same mysterious way that much primitive art does, even to the sophisticated.

Whether DeGrazia portrays scenes from the life of the ancient people or modern Pima or Papago Indians, or the Apache, Navajo, Yaqui or Yuma, his work always indicates his vast knowledge of the native people he understands. The other native races of the American Southwest or the Mexican Northwest share equally in his respect and authenticity of treatment. The landscape and people he delineates, the colors he uses and the way he uses them, could only be done by one who has dedicated a lifetime of study, service and love to his land, its geography, its climate, its flora, its fauna, its people, its culture and its history.

Now that the West is beginning to discover itself, appreciate its heritage and honor its artists, this ever-expanding region, with its distinctive character, may well prove to be one of the outstanding forces in developing a greater awareness of and appreciation for American culture.

BY THE SERI SEA From, "DeGrazia Paints The Seri"

TAOS PUEBLO

From DeGrazia's Arizona-New Mexico Indian Suite

YAQUI PROCESSIONAL From, "DeGrazia Paints The Yaqui Easter"

When so much artistic energy is absorbed, as it is today, in the search for fantastical correspondences in line, color, and shape and when a fanciful inventiveness has become almost the sole motive for aesthetically directed performance, to be named master of fantasy would not seem to suggest any great distinction. However, there is a difference between an art of fantasy and a fantastical art. The fantastical, as we have come to use the term, is always somewhat outrageous. It strains our sense of meaning or knocks awry our perceptions of the order of things. Sometimes it evokes a sense of the ridiculous and we laugh; but more often we sense in it a touch of craziness, of maladjustment, or worse, that sort of blatant effrontery by which the perverted soul so often tends to sustain itself. Through the long historic tale of art in the societies of man, the formulation and communication of shared or share-able meanings constituted the chief function of the artist. Little by little for the past hundred years, and presently with great acceleration, that function has been disappearing. The artist has lost his purpose and art no more speaks of the thoughts and ideas of social man but only of itself and, very largely, to itself. It has become a procession of meaningless conglomerates, sometimes engagingly sensational, but always empty of that human content which has made true Art cherishable. Changing too rapidly for the attachment of socially acceptable symbolic meanings, as might possibly occur in a calmer and slower time, these creations,as they accumulate, suggest only an endless and purposeless progression, a sort of ever continuing process of abstraction which abstracts nothing because it is directed at nothing. From fantasy certainly all this is generated but from a curiously disattached as well as dehumanized kind. Very different is the fantasy of Ted DeGrazia. He himself is as much an abstractionist as anybody but he manages to abstract something because his attention is directed to something, a something which exists outside himself and his special concerns with artistic procedure. This enables him to communicate through his abstractions and directly, without any windy rationalization. His pictures tell a story partly because there is a story in what inspires them, but mostly because he knows how to find a story and because he has the right kind of intuitions. His stories are very real though the means of telling them are fanciful rather than realistic. His painted world is an intangible one of iridescent floating colors but it calls up, and poignantly, that real world of the desert which he loves and close to which he lives. The desert itself is like a fantasy, like something in a dream. Desert shapes are, of course, as solid as anywhere else and desert distances as measurable but they don't seem so. Only too frequently what is off on the horizon appears sharper and more defined than what is at your feet. Your ordinary realistic perceptions are inadequate for catching the qualities of the desert vista. But DeGrazia's fantasies, rapidly improvised as they appear, tenuous, shimmering wisps of color as they are, do catch them and reveal them to us better, I think, than they have yet been revealed in painting. A feeling of this desert quality permeates all that DeGrazia does. Little pigtailed girls play in the glittering colors of a desert flowering or in the shiny yellows of a desert noon and a donkey wanders off in the opalescent tints of a desert sunrise, himself a part of that opalescence. The impossible erections of the great desert cacti become credible when invested with the poetry of DeGrazia's imagination. As parts of a poetic human vision they become humanly acceptable. This is where DeGrazia's art stands out and takes on distinction in the welter of abstractions now thrust upon us. It is full of a delicate and very human poetry which everybody feels and everybody can understand. We are much in need of an art like this. DeGrazia has shown up at the right time.

MASTER OF FANTASY THOMAS HART BENTON

As they accumulate, suggest only an endless and purposeless progression, a sort of ever continuing process of abstraction which abstracts nothing because it is directed at nothing. From fantasy certainly all this is generated but from a curiously disattached as well as dehumanized kind. Very different is the fantasy of Ted DeGrazia. He himself is as much an abstractionist as anybody but he manages to abstract something because his attention is directed to something, a something which exists outside himself and his special concerns with artistic procedure. This enables him to communicate through his abstractions and directly, without any windy rationalization. His pictures tell a story partly because there is a story in what inspires them, but mostly because he knows how to find a story and because he has the right kind of intuitions. His stories are very real though the means of telling them are fanciful rather than realistic. His painted world is an intangible one of iridescent floating colors but it calls up, and poignantly, that real world of the desert which he loves and close to which he lives. The desert itself is like a fantasy, like something in a dream. Desert shapes are, of course, as solid as anywhere else and desert distances as measurable but they don't seem so. Only too frequently what is off on the horizon appears sharper and more defined than what is at your feet. Your ordinary realistic perceptions are inadequate for catching the qualities of the desert vista. But DeGrazia's fantasies, rapidly improvised as they appear, tenuous, shimmering wisps of color as they are, do catch them and reveal them to us better, I think, than they have yet been revealed in painting. A feeling of this desert quality permeates all that DeGrazia does. Little pigtailed girls play in the glittering colors of a desert flowering or in the shiny yellows of a desert noon and a donkey wanders off in the opalescent tints of a desert sunrise, himself a part of that opalescence. The impossible erections of the great desert cacti become credible when invested with the poetry of DeGrazia's imagination. As parts of a poetic human vision they become humanly acceptable. This is where DeGrazia's art stands out and takes on distinction in the welter of abstractions now thrust upon us. It is full of a delicate and very human poetry which everybody feels and everybody can understand. We are much in need of an art like this. DeGrazia has shown up at the right time.

In this special issue we purposely omitted reproduction of De Grazia's winsome children and impressionistic angels, which have made him internationally famous and financially independent.

The years have a way of slipping one into the other and we feel that the serious side of De Grazia is possessed with a touch of greatness worth our exclaims and acclaims and we hope they justify our personal opinion that Ted De Grazia is one of the most exciting creative artists of our time.

We believe the collection shown here is representative of certain basic qualities found in the works of most great artists. Yet De Grazia's distinctiveness sets his work apart from that of other contemporaries.

We cannot categorize the man or his work. Impressionist . . . Fantasist . . . Expressionist... Realist... What? His paintings please us; they have pleased several million people. His paintings express clean air, clear skies, the beauty of simple things, children you want to hug, earthy people worth knowing, a land worth living in. They look as though they were painted with a love of beauty and joy.

His style is pretty much the way he talks, expressed in paint. He paints the spirit of birds. He paints the feel of energy in Jesus the man as he shoulders his cross. He paints compassion and understanding in the faces of "Los Perdidos."

At Buck Saunders' Gallery we were privileged to preview several artist's proofs from several new series of very limited editions (30 to 50) each, of lithographs, silk screen prints and etchings - all reflecting the unmistakable De Grazia palette, incorporating new concepts strong in the qualities which De Grazia has mastered more successfully than any other artist.

Yes, De Grazia is "over the hill" but we see him striving for the summit of a higher mountain than he has ever climbed to date, more inventive, more searching, more daring, more self expressing. While others are stopped at the hilltop, for De Grazia there are many more mountains to climb.

Ted De Grazia is an extraordinary individual, and his art is as extraordinary as the modest man who creates the winsome impressionistic angels and ceremonious Indians of the Southwest, for which he has become nationally famous. His style is so nearly unique that it defies imitation.

Significantly, De Grazia and his work are the product of an era in which the basic values of good art and beauty have severely been challenged or destroyed in the minds of many by attempts to find new ways of artistic expression. This unfortunate trend was brought about by a faction of radical artists, who have called themselves the avant-garde. They have undertaken to

APACHE CAMP From "De Grazia Paints the Apache Indians"

predominate the whole art scene, from classrooms to museums, with not-good abstractions, pop-art, illegitimate sculpture, and other wild adventures into the bizarre and absurd. But it has become increasingly evident, among collectors and in the marketplaces, that these experiments have accomplished little more than frustration, both in and out of the fields of academic art. Now there is a strong trend back to the traditional.A proper and lasting evaluation of art has been tormenting even the best of critics for centuries. They have not even been able to agree on a definition for great art for art in its finest form, is a many splendored intangible. What one judge may prefer, another may not. Nevertheless, there are certain basic characteristics to be found in the works of most great artists. Good craftsmanship and consistent quality are fundamental; as is also a quality of strongly appealing in a pleasant way to a large number of discriminating people. Probably the most definite hallmark of a great artist is a distinctiveness that sets that artist's work apart from all others. For example, a Remington or a Childe Hassam or an Andrew Wyeth can be identified about as far away as they can be seen. These qualities certainly are to be found in the magnificent work of Ted De Grazia. In the opinion of this writer he is foremost among the American impressionists.