FERDINAND BURGDORFF NAVAJO LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING, 1972

Ferdinand Burgdorff
American, 1881-1975
A Navajo Landscape with Covered Wagon
Signed: Ferdinand Burgdorff 1972 (lr) Titled: A Navajo Fortune/Arizona (in artist hand) in black marker. #32 ? Labeled: C.A.A. + Carmel Art Association Gallery P.O. BOX 2271 Carmel, CA (Black & Gold) circular foil label.
Oil on Board
24 x 24 inches

Condition report: Very good to excellent; 99.9% original surface paint. Displays perfectly!

Lot Note(s): For a very similar: (larger work) See Christies Los Angeles: Lot: 40 with a presale estimate of $7000-9000 SOLD: $11,355.00 USD

Housed in a vintage gilt wooden (Arizona Native American Style) gilt wooden frame.

Additional Notes: This beautiful painting has 'Matte Rookwood Vellum' finish to the image?.which gives it a wonderful luminescent quality?.Absolutely superb example!

Gallery label: The Carmel Art Association is a Not-for-profit arts organization and gallery located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The CAA is Carmel's oldest gallery. It features the work of many local artists living on the Monterey Peninsula. Many of its members were early California artists. The CAA is a 501 organization.

Address: Dolores Street between 5th &, 6th Ave, Carmel-By-The-Sea, CA 93921
Phone: (831) 624-6176
Founded: 1927

ARTIST BIO:
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Ferdinand Burgdorff studied at the Cleveland School of Art and in Paris with Rene Menard and Florence Este. In 1907, he headed West with the intention of becoming a desert landscape painter. He lived in box cars with railroad builders on the stretch of line between Yuma and Calexico and traveling by wagon or horseback, accompanied surveyors on many trips into the desert. Of this time he wrote: 'There were such exciting things to see and paint, undisturbed by a single human within miles' (Widening Horizons).

He also worked for a period in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he painted the sandy wastes near Albuquerque in the region known as the Sandia. He then moved to California where he was an illustrator for The Sunset magazine, then a new publication. Many of the paintings he had made earlier were reproduced in this magazine.

In California, he first lived in Carmel where he was an active member of the Carmel Colony. He later settled in nearby in Pebble Beach, building a home on Rondo Road. In 1911, he took an exhibition of his desert paintings back to his home town of Cleveland, and sold enough to finance a two-year trip around the world. His main objective was to see Greece and Egypt because they were ancient desert worlds. He also painted along the Nile, which reminded him of the Colorado River.

When he died, he was the oldest working artist on the Monterey Peninsula, having painted many coastal views and abandoned mining towns in pastel, oil and watercolor. From 1907 to 1924, he made numerous painting trips to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. His work was both realistic and romantic, conveying a sense of mystery and drama in his landscapes.

Excellent.