Maynard Dixon (1875-1946)
Abandoned House, Contra Costa Co., Cal.
signed, inscribed and dated 'Maynard Dixon / Contra Costa. May 1931' (lower right)
oil on canvas laid to Masonite
25 x 30 in.
framed 33 x 37 in.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, California.
Property from a Corporate Collection, Los Angeles, from the above, 1983.

Literature
Wesley M. Burnside, Maynard Dixon: Artist of the West, Provo, Utah, 1974, p. 173, likely.

The period when the present work was painted was a difficult time for the artist. Not only had sales slowed significantly and often required steep discounting due to the Depression, Dixon's New York gallerist Robert W. Macbeth, reported that tastes were moving in the direction of Modernism. ¹ It was in this uncertain period that Dixon day-tripped to Contra Costa County and executed Abandoned Houses, a subject that certainly reflected his thoughts and concerns about his future. The following month, Dixon, wife Dorothea Lange and their sons John and Daniel left San Francisco for New Mexico where he would spend seven months working out of a Taos studio belonging to New Mexican art patron Mabel Dodge Luhan. ² Finding inspiration in this new and dramatic environment, Dixon was able to shake off some of his concerns and find 'artistic clarity' in his work produced there. ³

In Abandoned Houses, a sense of desertion and isolation is palpable in the scene, despite the bucolic setting. Viewed from above on a foreground hillside, the fenced in pens near the forsaken barn structures stand empty and are surrounded by layers of grassy fields that guide the eye in soft, layered diagonals toward distant foothills and purple-hued mountains. The suggestion of grazing cows in the fields adjacent to the foothills are articulated with just a few deft dabs of reddish-brown paint. The ombre effect Dixon often employs in his landscape skies is seen here with the lightest sky hues creating a shimmering effect against the outline of the mountains and increasing to more intense blue-tonality toward the upper edge of the composition.

The present work is #516 in the Maynard Dixon ledger.

¹ Mark Sublette, Maynard Dixon's American West: Along the Distant Mesa, Tucson, Arizona, 2018, p. 225.
² Ibid., p. 225.
³ Ibid., p. 225.

Oil on canvas laid to Masonite. Scattered, stable craquelure concentrated in the sky and center. Edge wear. Under UV light examination, no evidence of retouch. No further condition issues to report.

In a distressed carved wooden frame with gilt accent. The frame rough and splintery on the edges.