PAINTINGS
Anderson, Guy Irving
U.S. (1906 - 1998)
Far Beach
1969
Oil on illustration board
30 1/16 x 40 1/8 in. (76.4 x 102 cm) board size; 30 7/8 x 40 7/8 x 1 5/8 in. (78.4 x 103.8 x 4.1 cm) frame size
Gift of Francine Seders and Guy Anderson, in memory of Zoe Dusanne
FA 72.8

Throughout his career, Guy Anderson has worked to create a symbolic vocabulary that presents most clearly his image of man and the landscape he loves. This painting, like many others of this period, combines large abstract forms floating somewhere between earth and sky. Often a figure is so integrated into the abstract design that it is at first not discernible. Anderson uses an earthy palette of colors from the Northwest landscape.

Anderson, who is identified with the “Northwest School” of painting, grew up in the Puget Sound region, studying both art and music on an old homestead surrounded by virgin forest. Both of his grandmothers were pioneer women. As a young artist he was a close friend of Morris Graves; they roamed the West Coast sketching, studying, climbing mountains. During the 1940s, their friendship grew to include Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan and Callahan’s wife, Margaret. They were all fanatical explorers of the world around them and were especially drawn to Asian art and thought. -- Label copy for Unpacking the Collection: Collecting Northwest Art, April 10 to May 15, 1997, and October 16, 1997, to March 24, 1998.