Compilation of the Gods, 2017, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in.

Walters will celebrate the canyon—as well as his vast and unchallenged colossus of a career—with a new retrospective at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West in Scottsdale, Arizona. The exhibition will also mark the release of his book, Resilience: The Life and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters, a nearly 400-page examination of the artist’s vision and work. The book was written by his grandson, dDamian Foreman, who notes in the preface, “Curt and I have an inexplicable love of the physical landscape of the Southwest. There are many gorgeous places in the world—but this small slice of the planet’s face, [the Grand Canyon,] has burrowed deep into our hearts.” 

Curt Walters plein air painting at the Grand Canyon. Courtesy the artist.

While the book covers much of Walters’ fascination with the Grand Canyon—his first trip was made alone in 1969—it also punctuates his interest in the land and conservation. In one early adventure around the age of 14, the artist went with his family to Glen Canyon Dam near Page, Arizona. The road trip in the family’s Mercury was miserable, he notes. “Though the journey portion of the adventure left the children bored and overheated, Curt’s reaction to the dam far outweighed the hours of morbidity he had endured on route,” Foreman writes. “While [Curt’s father] admired the extraordinary architectural and engineering feat, praising the genius of the thing, Curt was horrified by his realization that, as water piled up at the dam, it would inevitably submerge miles of the canyon behind the dam. He was sickened by the ramifications of such a massive, unnatural body of water: Why would anyone intentionally destroy the gorgeous canyon? Didn’t they realize that the network of slot canyons and grottoes lining Glen Canyon’s edges would suffer the same fate? What kind of impact would the dam have on the plants and animals—both upstream and down? Curt later discovered that environmentalists and Native Americans in the region shared his dismay at the loss and the flooding of significant ecological and cultural sites.”

Through the Eyes of Cardenas 1540, 2021, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. 

Resilience also speaks at length on the artist’s feelings as a gay man during the 1970s and beyond. Walters even told his first wife he was gay; she thought marriage would “solve” him. “It was a very dangerous time for men like me. It was common for police departments worldwide to use painful electric shock and chemical aversion, often ending in an innocent person’s cruel, senseless death. I was simply in fear most of the time. I understood that professional careers could be destroyed by a rumor,” he says in the book. “I desperately wanted to believe that marriage was the right path. I saw no other path open to me. I felt that I must follow the rules of society as I perceived them, even if my instincts and friends tried to tell me different. Marriage, I thought, was my only chance to become a professional artist and protect myself at the same time. It was a Faustian bargain: I gave up a core part of myself in exchange for the potential to chase art and, by extension, my happiness.”

Inexorable Shiprock, 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in.

Later, after he divorced his wife and then met his partner Tom Dailey, Walters was careful with his personal life. He says that life in Sedona, where he moved in 1979, was somewhat normal due the accepting nature of the community. He was not always offered the same acceptance in the art world. In one painful section in Resilience, Walters relates how some artists refused to shake his hand, and others ended friendships. In 1984, painter Wilson Hurley confided to the artist that the board of directors would never invite him to the Prix de West. “Curt had been submitting his work for five years and naturally wanted to know why he had been unsuccessful,” Foreman writes. “In what Curt describes as a ‘boot to the stomach,’ Hurley told him: ‘It’s your lifestyle choice. If your work makes it through the doors, it will have to be better than the best.’”

Instant Opus, 2019, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in.

Walters admits he’s hesitant to push these stories forward because he wants people to see him as an American artist, not a gay American artist. The minor distinction is important to him. “These were difficult parts of my life, but they don’t define me. I could have left them out, but I want this book to speak for me for generations,” he says. 

Cathedral Gap, 2018, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in. 

“As I approached the edge of Grand Canyon for the first time, I was astonished at the marvelous sight. But my excitement was tempered by sudden intimidation. And yet, somehow, I knew I belonged there, and I felt joy. I’d been working hard on the farm that summer, and I’d sold a Shiprock painting at the country store for $15. Gas was 32 cents a gallon. Mom sent along a large tin of her homemade oatmeal cookies, my diet for two days. I took my wood easel and paints, my TV tray, and a glass palette. I borrowed Dad’s 35mm camera from his dental office and bought a couple of canisters of black-and-white film, about 48 frames, all that I could afford. I had never used a camera before.”

Cardenas, Evening Watch—September 1540, 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 in.

And paint it he did. Today his works are some of the most iconic and identifiable images of the canyon ever painted. And to the lucky few who stumble upon him and his easel in the park, it’s like bumping into Elvis at Graceland. Not since Andy Warhol and the soup aisle, Sydney Laurence and Denali, or Monet and his Giverny lily pads has an artist been so intrinsically linked to a single subject or place as Walters and the Grand Canyon. 

Winter’s Silk Shadows, 2023, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in.

It is this dynamic that will be at play in Curt Walters: Resilience, the Western Spirit retrospective, which runs from January 17 to April 12. The museum will host a ticketed VIP night on January 16, as well as several seminars and a book signing after the opening. Refer to the website for updated scheduling. In addition, the museum will be offering his book, Resilience: The Life and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters, which releases in January. —

 

Curt Walters: Resilience