Thomas Moran (1837-1926)
Property from an Oklahoma Private Collection
Thomas Moran (1837-1926)

Zion Valley, South Utah

Details
Thomas Moran (1837-1926)
Zion Valley, South Utah
signed with initials in monogram and dated 'TMoran. 1914.' with artist's thumbprint (lower right)
oil on canvas
22 1/8 x 42 1/8 in. (56.2 x 107 cm.)
Painted in 1914.
Provenance
The artist.
Mr. Thomas G. Plant, Lucknow Castle (now Castle in the Clouds), near Melvin Village, New Hampshire, acquired from the above.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Tobey, Sr., Plymouth, New Hampshire, acquired from the above.
Estate of the above.
Private collection, by descent from the above.
Sotheby's, New York, 30 May 1985, lot 108, sold by the above.
J.N. Bartfield Galleries, New York, acquired from the above.
Acquired by the late owner from the above, 1985.
Literature
Artist's studio record, 1914 (as Valley of the Rio Virgen in Southern Utah).
T. Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, Norman, Oklahoma, 1966, p. 26.
N.K. Anderson, Thomas Moran, Washington, D.C., 1997, p. 274 (as Zion Canyon, S. Utah).
Exhibited
New York, Century Association, December 1914 (as Zion Canyon, S. Utah).

Lot Essay

This work will be included in Stephen L. Good's and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.


Zion Valley, South Utah manifests the profound veneration and wonder that Thomas Moran harbored for the Western American landscape. In doing so, it represents the best of Moran’s efforts at designing an awe-inspiring image that captures the unique character and grandeur of the natural formations at Zion National Park. The Southwest is a landscape inextricably linked with American's national heritage, and Moran's depictions of this region have been celebrated for over a century for their ability to transcend simply beautiful artistic reproductions, stirring within their viewer an intense emotional appreciation for his subject.

Following his first trip West to Yellowstone with Ferdinand V. Hayden in 1871, Moran next set out in 1873, joining Major John Wesley Powell’s survey of the Southwest. Powell had already captivated American audiences when he led a small group of men through the treacherous waters of the Colorado River, winding his way through a grand landscape that sounded as if it could rival that of the Yellowstone region. With Powell’s invitation to join his next expedition, Moran saw a unique opportunity to build upon his fast-developing popularity and, specifically, to compile material for a pendant painting to join his massive Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (Smithsonian American Art Museum, Lent by the Department of the Interior Museum, Washington, D.C.), which Congress had purchased for the Capitol.

Travelling overland with a newspaper correspondent as companion, Moran ventured southward from the Salt Lake City area through territory that had already been settled by followers of the Mormon faith, towards the canyon lands of Southwestern Utah and Northwestern Arizona. Periodically stopping along the way, the pair eventually arrived in the valley encompassing Toquerville before pushing eastward to the settlements of Virgin, Grafton, Rockville and finally Springdale, where they happened on the scene depicted in Zion Valley, South Utah. Moran made several sketches of the valley through which the Rio Virgin ran, known by local tribes as Mukuntuweap and located at the mouth of Zion Canyon, before travelling onwards to meet Major Powell in Kanab, Utah, and eventually set his eyes on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River for the first time.

However, Moran was immediately captivated by the unique and dramatic light, color and topography of Utah, which he would never forget. Writing some years later, he reported, “Southern Utah is where Nature reveals herself in all her tumultuous and awe-inspiring grandeur…There is a cañon off the Rio Virgin known in the local Indian vernacular as Mu-Koun-Tu-Weap, that for glory of scenery and stupendous scenic effects cannot be surpassed. Its cliffs rise up in rugged massiveness for 5000 feet, with some of the most peculiar formations believable toward the top. It is a marvelous piece of Nature's handiwork that is worth going a long distance to see. I think southern Utah is unsurpassed in the class of scenery that characterizes it.” (as quoted in G. Lindstrom, Thomas Moran in Utah, Logan, Utah, 1983, p. 5) Taking up the Zion subject in earnest once back in his New England studio, Moran completed a number of watercolors of the area, including Valley of the Babbling Waters, which would become widely circulated in the famous chromolithographic series of Louis Prang. In addition to finding his source material for the present work, this expedition to the Southwest proved crucial to Moran’s career and provided eye-opening reference for a lifetime of painting.

As evidenced in Zion Valley, South Utah, the unique topography of the land lent itself particularly well to Moran’s style of painting. Here, Moran presents in rare large-scale an awe-inspiring scene of one of Utah’s most breathtaking panoramas, rendering the spectacular expanse of cathedral-like cliffs that buttress the lush Rio Virgin valley and define the Zion area. Unlike Moran’s other celebrated images of the canyon lands of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, Moran does not choose as his vantage point a place high above his vast subject. Instead, as in his most accomplished views of Green River, Wyoming, the painter utilizes a low angle to convey reverence. Throughout, there is a dramatic play of light and shadow on the fantastic natural forms, with a variegated paint surface that conveys the dry desert sand of the hillside at left, the rough façades of the buttes and coarse branches of the shrubs surrounding the river. To further capture the unique texture and light of the environment, Moran utilizes color modulations in richly painted and drastically varying hues of yellow, pink, orange, green and blue. The fiery cliff face of the leftmost feature, likely Mount Kinesava or the West Temple, is dramatically set against a crystalline sky that further magnifies its majesty. By contrast, the central and right portion of the vista, likely the East Temple and the Watchman, is silhouetted against approaching clouds that emanate from the depths of Zion Canyon. The entire landscape is suffused with saturated, atmospheric light, which enhances the scene’s vast ruggedness and grandeur.

The success of Moran’s abilities as an artist are evident here, as is his ability to capture the imagination of his public audience by conveying the splendor of the American landscape. As such, Zion Valley, South Utah joins Moran’s accomplished paintings of numerous other celebrated places throughout the West. In addition to the present work, at this time Moran explored a series of unique locales outside of his norm, apparently deeming them important for his viewers to gain exposure to, including the Devil’s Tower, Wyoming; Index Peak, Wyoming; the Pueblos of Acoma and Laguna, New Mexico; and the Garden of the Gods, Colorado. By establishing so greatly the importance of such subjects through his majestic depictions, Moran undoubtedly contributed to a broad appreciation that was central to conservation and preservation efforts in early 19th century America. In fact, years after Moran’s initial visit to Southern Utah, and his subsequent success in disseminating his imagery of the Southwestern landscape throughout the country, President William Howard Taft created the Mukuntuweap National Monument in July 1909. Within a few years, the old dirt trails and wagon roads that the painter had initially relied upon to traverse the area had turned in to gravel roads, which were increasingly popular amongst tourists. A decade later, in 1919, the Monument was expanded and renamed Zion National Park, the first of its kind in the state of Utah. By 1923, the Union Pacific Railroad, whose many promotions had been graced by Moran’s images, established a terminus north of Zion at Cedar City, and eventually the path that Moran had likely walked in the 1870s was expanded to accommodate automobiles. Undoubtedly the popularity of locales like Zion, and specifically the valley depicted in Zion Valley, South Utah, were the direct result of Moran’s efforts to share the unique landscape of the Southwest with a vast American audience, whether through the auspices of railroad promotion or over a fifty year period as a fine artist.

Moran's landscape paintings, particularly those of the Southwest, are treasures in our cultural history, having conveyed the grandeur of an entire region to the American public for generations. As Carol Clark writes, "Moran's western canvases and watercolors depicted areas of great significance to the American public; they conferred historical legitimacy to a land lacking human associations and presented a stage for the unfolding drama of a nation's future…As America viewed her land, especially the West, as part of a natural historical past destined to determine a great future, Americans began to accept landscape painting in oil and watercolor as an integral and formative element of this destiny.” (Thomas Moran: Watercolors of the American West, Austin, Texas, 1980, p. 35) It was the finest accomplishment of Moran's career that, through works such as Zion Valley, South Utah, he transformed the appreciation of art and the allure of the West into an integral part of the American identity.

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