A painting of the Grand Canyon made from a close-up vantage point and picturing layer after layer of rock formations extending into the distance. With only a thin strip of cloudy sky visible along the top edge, the painting gives the sense of that the canyon walls go on forever. The composition contrasts warm tones in the foreground against cool tones in the background. The effect is to give the image a real sense of depth. From front to back: yellow-ish brown rocky outcroppings fill the lower corners of the painting. A reddish brown wall with a zig-zagged silhouette rises along the right edge of the painting behind them. The middle ground is taken up by a grayish-brown mountain-shaped mass of rock with two small peaks. A grayish-purple flat-topped cliff wall runs behind it in the far distance.

Edgar Alwin Payne

Untitled (Grand Canyon)

About 1909–1942

Oil on canvas

24” W x 20” H

About this artwork

Edgar Alwin Payne’s paintings are often designed not just to show the viewer the landscape, but to help them imagine themselves within it. In Untitled (Grand Canyon), Payne positions the viewer a short distance down a canyon wall trail. This perspective is more intimate than an aerial view or the panorama visible from the canyon’s rim. Immersed within the canyon, the viewer is dwarfed by its hugeness but can also appreciate the architectural features of the canyon walls.

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Gallup’s New Deal art collection consists of over 120 objects created, purchased, or donated from 1933 to 1942 through New Deal federal art programs administered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support artists during the Great Depression.

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