Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
Oil on Canvas
61 x 76 cm
Signed lower right
EXHIBITED
Jonathan Grant Galleries, Peter McIntyre Exhibition, 2009
LITTERATURE
McIntyre, Peter. (1970) Peter McIntyre’s West. Land Magazine & Book Company, Menlo Park, California; A.H & A.W Reed, Wellington.
ILLUSTRATED
Plate 26. McIntyre, Peter. (1970) Peter McIntyre’s West. Land Magazine & Book Company, Menlo Park, California; A.H & A.W Reed, Wellington.
(2009) Peter McIntyre [Exhibition Catalogue]. Auckland, New Zealand: Jonathan Grant Galleries.
McIntyre and his wife, Patty, travelled to the United States of America to paint and write for his self titled book, Peter McIntyre’s West. Their journey would take them “as far south as the Mexican border, east to New Mexico, and as far north as Alaska – a journey covering somewhere around 20,000 miles”. Their journey through the American heart- land led McIntyre to expand his painting practice. McIntyre’s voyage through America allowed the artist to explore new subject matters and painterly techniques and it is this exploration that has led to the innovations in artistic style visible in McIntyre’s West works.
After McIntyre’s incredible journey through the United States of America, the artist felt a certain affinity with the country and wrote; “Lingering with us was a profound love of the American West, the most incredible area on the surface of the earth, and of people who had been more kindly than any other we have ever travelled among.”
Canyon de Chelly
"Of all the great Canyons of the West, Canyon de Chelly is one of the loveliest. As we walked down the Zig-zag path carved in the rock face, we were en-thralled by it's beauty. Above and around us rose towering smooth walls, striped like banners by weather of the ages and glowing in reds and ochres. Down on the canyon floor the autumn trees appeared as a flow of gold along the stream's edge.
When you peer over the edge of Canyon de Chelly you look down into history, for much has happened here. The Pueblo people built their cliff houses somewhere between 1100 and 1300, but the disastrous drought of the 1200's drove them out of the south. The Navajos came here some five-hundred years later, and their raids along Rio Grande brought the Spaniards in re-prisal. A battle was fought here in 1805, and many Navajos were killed in the fortified rock shelter now known as Massacre Cave. Kit Carson and the U.S cavalry came in 1864, and the Navajos began the "long walk", as they call it, to a reservation where many died. After four years they were allowed to return, and today you can still see here and there their patches of cultivation on the floor of the Canyon."
McIntyre, Peter. Peter McIntyre’s West. 1970
