Glenn Dean
Across the Divide
Many great artists have visited Taos, New Mexico, to paint the landscape, the people and the ancient Pueblo. Artists including Joseph Henry Sharp, Eanger Irving Couse, Ernest L. Blumenschein, Walter Ufer, John Marin and countless others. Add to that list the California painter Glenn Dean.
“Taos is quite a unique and special place. I love going there,” Dean says from his studio. “The Native and Pueblo culture of Taos is beautiful. I’m inspired by those cultures that long carry the spirit of the West within its traditions and its people. Through the generosity of some Taos friends and their family, I was fortunate enough to meet a few Pueblo Indians who kindly agreed to model for my paintings.”
Dean, who has largely focused on cowboy subjects in recent years, felt a responsibility to approach his Native American subjects carefully and with respect. “I feel grateful to have been given an opportunity to paint Native subjects,” he adds. “I feel they deserve to be approached with great reverence and respect, both as a people and as a subject for art.”
These new Taos works, as well as impressive new cowboy pieces, will be part of a show opening September 5 at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles. “The show is titled Across the Divide, which has to do with many of the subjects in my work that are physically journeying through the landscape, transcending boundaries and barriers,” he says. “It also implies a spiritual transcending which can occur simultaneously while being on a physical journey through the great open spaces of the West.”
New paintings include the 50-by-50-inch Cowpuncher of the Red Dust Lands, which shows a horse and rider descending a sandy hill. “It’s inspired by the areas around Moab and Castle Valley, Utah. I worked with this cowboy that I met out there that was the real deal,” Dean says. “I wanted this composition to be relatively simple but I wanted it to carry a moving energy to it. I was interested in painting the subtle effect of dust churning up underneath the rider as he descends the sunlit bank. I liked the big color relationship of the blue sky contrasting with the red earth and the rider centered high in the composition.”
Another element that turns up frequently in Dean’s work are women. These subjects can be pioneer women greeting their husbands before they embark on a trail ride, but they are often on horseback riding through the landscape right alongside their male counterparts.
“I just feel that women are as good as any man, if not better,” he adds. “In my paintings, I feel like a woman adds a little honesty to the man she rides along with. When on her own in a composition, I feel that a woman adds a spirit of strength, as well as a gentle-naturedness to the picture.”
Across the Divide continues through
September 26.