GUNNAR MAURITZ WIDFORSS (1879-1934)
Lot 261

GUNNAR MAURITZ WIDFORSS (1879-1934)

Grand Canyon

Closed18 May 2021

Price Realised

USD 12,500

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GUNNAR MAURITZ WIDFORSS (1879-1934)
Grand Canyon
signed and dated 'Widforss -1924-' (lower left)
watercolor on paper
20 x 17 1⁄2 in. (50.8 x 44.5 cm.)
Executed in 1924.

Private collection, Topeka, Kansas, circa late 1920s.
By descent to the present owner.

Specialist note


In 1924, the year the present work was painted, Swedish-born Gunnar Widforss exhibited a large group of works depicting scenes from U.S. National Parks, including Yellowstone, Zion, Bryce, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The director at the time, E.H. Holmes, praised the works, "These are the finest things of their kind that have come out of the west. He is possibly the greatest watercolorist in America today." (Gunnar Widforss: Painter of the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1969, p. 25)

The present work has been assigned number 318 in Alan Petersen’s online catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.