HAROLD "BUCK" WEAVER
Learned Much | Exhibit at Club
To "Buck" Weaver,
a small English lad, America, the country and its people, seemed to hold for him
the world in opportunity. In the early days of the wide open western range, in
the years of 1904-05 and on, Buck Weaver felt a deep and personal interest in
the land of the southwest. Those early years he possessed a keen interest in the
American Indian tribes that lived in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. He learned
the ways of the Hopis and Navajos living on Arizona reservations. He helped to
establish one of the first Navajo trading posts set up in a tent. He became
acquainted with well-known and important people of these western states and
later conducted his friend, Irving S. Cobb, on a trip through this country,
introducing him to many of the great old-timers.
Learned Much
From the school of experience he won his education, studied avidly and learned
much. The wide spaces, its nature, its land and its people became a part of his
very soul. He was eager in observation, splendid at remembering, which proved a
rare gift when he worked his way up to becoming the fine landscape artist that
he is today. Engraved within his memory of that early experience are all the
magnificent pictures of nature which he expresses upon canvas faithfully and
well. Always clever with his hands, he came to Laguna Beach in the early days,
opened a shop, and began his craftsmanship by making picture frames. He became a
personal friend of many established artists, designing, carving and gilding
frames on contract. A close friend of the landscape artist, the late Maynard
Dixon, he acquired, by osmosis, the knowledge of portraying in oils, the many
beautiful "landscapes of memory" that he had seen in his youth. He
worked slowly, spending many months on one picture. Utter truthfulness and
simplicity were his greatest assets. He studied long hours on the chemistry of
color, his drawings were worked out months in advance of his painting effort.
Every detail of nature, the mesquite bushes, rocks, cloud effects, angle of
mountains, shadows, sky, must ring true to the country portrayed in feeling, in
depth and in color. The haunting immensity of open spaces, the torpid haze of
noon, the purple of distant hills, the brilliance of a desert moon, and the
enchantment of a desert storm - all... he portrays with mastery and skill.
Exhibit at Club
At the Altadena Town and Country Club throughout this month you will have the
opportunity to see and appreciate (for they are excellently displayed) an
exhibit of 11 of Mr. Weaver's fine landscapes. Go up and see them; study them.
Those of you who know and love the desert will find them especially inspiring.
The Artist's talent extends to mural painting. He produced two murals at the
Golden Gate Exposition with Millard Sheets, two in the Santa Fe Railroad
Building in Chicago with Mrs. Edith H. Dixon and the splendid 30-foot murals of
the Grand Canyon in the Los Angeles Santa Fe office (Sixth and Hill Sts.) with
Maynard Dixon. He has recently exhibited in San Francisco and his landscapes are
to be hung in the Biltmore Galleries in a spring showing. There is a haunting
quality to his work that makes one want to see them many times again.
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