Mulhatton: King of Hoaxes

DeGrazia PORTRAIT OF A COLORFUL, UNORTHODOX ARTIST OPENING THE MASSIVE IRON DOOR TO

DeGrazia's Gallery in the Sun, I realize that it's been 17 years since I paid a solitary visit. True, I've been to weddings in the adjacent chapel, and I've visited the gallery with out-of-town friends, but I've missed the quiet, almost mystic experience of being here by myself. In the 1960s and '70s, when I collaborated with Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia on books and films, I often came here alone. When my work with the Arizona-born artist was finished, I'd stroll through the softly sky-lit rooms, feeling a sense of peace and childish delight. DeGrazia said he created this place to make his paintings feel good inside; the happy outcome is that people feel good, too. I feel good now as I follow a walkway tiled with polished cactus segments into a series of airy galleries. The walls are hung with images of round-eyed Mexican children, reverently rendered

DeGrazia A PORTRAIT

Madonnas, and fluidly graceful matadors. The artist's style is colorful, original, and abstract. Featureless faces abound. I can almost hear DeGrazia's raspy, slightly Italian-accented voice: “It's not how much you put on the canvas but what you don't put on it.” Arizona Highways was among the first to appreciate DeGrazia's minimalism. In the February, 1941 issue, then-Editor Raymond Carlson gave a rave review to the work of the struggling young painter. As DeGrazia's free-flowing style matured, the magazine began regularly publishing his work. From that publicity came discovery by Hallmark and UNICEF, both of which began putting DeGrazia's beguiling children on hot-selling greeting cards. By 1960 the Italian miner's son was well on his way to becoming the world's most reproduced artist.

DeGrazia built the adobe Gallery in the Sun with his own hands in the early '60s, aided by Yaqui Indian friends. By the time I began working with him, he'd become a Southwestern legend, holding court in his gallery every afternoon.

In my mind, I can see him in his favorite wicker chair, dressed in a collarless white shirt and faded jeans. His chest gleams with a heavy gold pendant; his wrists shine with massive bracelets. For hours he pursues his familiar routine of signing prints, shaking hands, and having his picture taken with families from Michigan. Although he teases the gullible with a swaggering self-image that includes a mythical harem of four wives and 27 kids, he treats each visitor with genuine respect. “People put me here on top,” he declares,