Artist: Melvin C. Warren

Title: Night in Chimayo

Medium: Lithograph on Paper

Limited Edition: 206/950

Art Dimensions: 18 H x 24 W inches


ARTIST BIO:

Melvin Warren created compositions faithful in their narrative and technical skill to the history of Mexico and the American West, particularly early Texas. He was adept at producing evocative nocturnal compositions that feature luminous moonlight, and the warm directed glow of candles and fire, such as in the present work. A full moon is high in the sky above the small Mexican town of Valenciana located near Guanajuato, as a group of figures, donkeys and oxen head out of town. Moonlight illuminates the edges of the foreground stonewalls and cacti paddles, and reflects off the donkeys' packs and figures' sombreros. Rustic adobe architecture and a mission church form the village's inviting and warm central-square, populated with traditionally dressed figures. The painting's timeless, antique sensibility is broken only by Warren's humorous and likely authentic inclusion of a 20th Century advertisement for 'Ice Cold Coca Cola' painted on the old stonewall to the right.

Warren was born in California but grew up on ranches in Arizona and New Mexico, before moving with his family to Texas at age fourteen. Warren served in the Air Force during World War II, and received a fine art degree from Texas Christian University upon his return. Despite a desire to be a full time easel painter and sculptor, he worked as an illustrator early in his career in order to support his family, while creating his own work at night. By the early 1960s, Warren achieved sufficient success as a fine artist that he was able to leave the commercial art field. Warren joined the Cowboy Artists of America in 1968 and won the Memorial Award in his first exhibition with the CAA. President Lyndon B. Johnson was an avid collector of Warren's work, as was former Texas Governor John Connally Jr.

Source: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25968/lot/59/

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