Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) Inyo County signed and dated 'Maynard Dixon / 1923' (lower right) oil on board 24 x 30in framed 37 x 41 1/2in Painted in 1923. Footnotes: Provenance William A. Karges Fine Art, Beverly Hills, California. Acquired by the present owner from the above. Born in the vast flatlands of the San Joaquin Valley in 1875, Maynard Dixon was afflicted with asthma from an early age. Because of his illness, Dixon led a quiet childhood sketching and listening to the tall tales of Native Americans and cowboys told by his paternal grandfather and six uncles. These stories pushed Dixon to develop a lifelong fascination with the lives of the settlers of the American West and the Indigenous peoples who originally inhabited the land. Dixon's artistic skill was recognized early in his life, though living in rural California provided little access to formal art instruction, so Dixon turned to the engravings in periodicals such as Scribner's and Harper's Weekly to improve his technique. Through these publications, Dixon became familiar with the work of contemporary artists illustrating the American West, chief amongst them Frederic Remington. Remington's dramatic and technical depictions left an indelible impression on young Dixon, and at age 16, Dixon sent two sketch books to Remington for criticism and advice. On Sept. 3 1891, Remington responded: 'Your letter and books are here and I have quite enjoyed your sketches . . . You draw better at your age than I did at the same age — if you have the 'sand' to overcome difficulties you could be an artist in time — no one's opinion of what you can do is of any consequence — time and your character will develop that . . . Study good pictures — do not intimidate them — read books and good literature — see much and observe the things in nature which captivate your fancy and above all draw — draw — draw —' Encouraged by this response, Dixon enrolled at the School of Design in San Francisco in the same year, though found formal training to be stifling and left before the end of the year. For the next 30 years, Dixon would bounce around as a cowpuncher and building a career as a magazine illustrator depicting his extensive travel throughout the United States. In 1920, Maynard Dixon married social commentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Shortly after this union began, Dixon shifted his energy to focus on painting murals. The large surface area of mural painting taught him to distill his painting style into simple but powerful compositions with hard horizon lines and vivid colors of the unfettered beauty of the American desert landscape. Painted in 1923, Inyo County is a strong example of his transitional period between the more graphic works of the 1910s and the concentrated canvases of the 1930s. In this work, he has begun to develop the definitive spatial divisions with the yellow row of brush separating the foreground from the mountains in the midground. The handling of the clouds in the sky is unique in this work, as they are formed in very diagonal manner which draws the eye back to the silhouette of the mountains. The shapes he is using here are more stylized and defined, as he is showing more confident in this modern style. Though Inyo County is a depiction of his native California, just to the east of his childhood home in the San Joaquin Valley, it could just as easily be a depiction of Utah or Arizona.