작품 상세

CHARLES GRAHAM (American, 1852-1911) Garden of the Gods Watercolor on paper 8 x 15 inches (20.3 x 38.1 cm) Initialed lower right: CG THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST PROVENANCE: Post Road Gallery, Larchmont, New York (label verso). An itinerant, self-taught sketch artist for Harper & Brothers, Charles Graham was born in Rock Island, Illinois, and his drawings were in nearly every issue of Harper's from 1880 to 1892. During those years he produced literally hundreds of works which illustrated everything from inaugurations, to conventions and city views. Before working for Harper's, Graham was a painter of theater backdrops in Chicago and then hired out as in 1883 a topographer for the Northern Pacific Railroad survey. He was present when the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1883, and covered the subject of railroads extensively for Harper's. "Little Charlie Graham," as fellow-artist W. A. Rogers referred to him, was described by the Minnesota Journal in those railroad survey years as "a young man, very short of stature, inclined to corpulency, who waddled along. . . making maps." From 1880 to 1889 he produced 120 views of the far West. He made a winter trip to Yellowstone in 1887 with photographer Frank J. Haynes. He also drew scenes of Denver. In 1890 he did sketches from the Dakotas to New Mexico. The present watercolor of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs probably dates from this period. Graham was no romantic. He disdained views of the grandeur of nature, preferring scenes that showed development, the march of progress and the taming of the wilderness.