On the Hance Trail-Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Arizona

Additional Information

Provenance:
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, NV, 2006

Thomas Moran was not just an artist painting the scenery of the American West. He was also a witness to history as many of his most famous subjects were discovered, explored, mapped and studied. Moran was a member of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 that explored the Yellowstone region; his paintings helped establish the National Park Service. He was one of the first artists to paint the Grand Tetons and Green River, both in Wyoming, and Zion Valley in Utah. For the Grand Canyon—as seen here in On the Hance Trail–Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Arizona—Moran was part of a pivotal expedition led by John Wesley Powell in 1873. The trip so captivated the artist that he visited the canyon as often as he could, and by the early 20th century he was spending most winters in Northern Arizona. Primarily working in watercolor sketches, Moran returned to his New York City studio to create his larger oil paintings. These Grand Canyon pieces are some of the most iconic American works of art ever created and are today in major museum collections such as the Smithsonian, the Gilcrease Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and countless others.

For On the Hance Trail–Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Arizona, painted in 1906, Moran focused his attention deeper into the canyon, seemingly far below the South Rim. The trail mentioned in the title is named after John Hance, who, after entering the canyon in 1883, became the first European American to settle at the Grand Canyon. “He originally built his trails for mining, but quickly determined the real money lay in work as a guide and hotel manager,” notes the National Park Service. “From the very start of his tourism business, with his Tennessee drawl, spontaneous wit, uninhibited imagination and ability to never repeat a tale in exactly the same way, he developed a reputation as an eccentric and highly entertaining storyteller.” Hance went on to carve several trails through the canyon, as well as improve the old Havasupai trail at the head of today’s Hance Creek drainage. His original trail, the Old Hance Trail, was prone to frequent washouts, so the New Hance Trail was built using some parts of the original route down. Today it is regarded as the most difficult trail at the canyon. Its technical difficulty prompted this review in 1904: “There may be men who can ride unconcernedly down Hance’s Trail, but I confess I am not one of them. My object in descending made it essential that I should live to tell the tale, and therefore, I mustered up sufficient
moral courage to dismount and scramble down the steepest and most awful sections of the path on foot…’On foot,’ however, does not express it, but on heels and toes, on hands and knees, and sometimes in the posture assumed by children when they come bumping down the stairs.”

Interestingly, the Met in New York City has the watercolor painting The Grand Canyon: Head of the Old Hance Trail, which shows the steep vertical descent down into the canyon and the peril that may await hikers. On the Hance Trail–Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Arizona, though, shows a more pleasing angle that exemplifies the canyon’s magnificence, unrivaled beauty and how light glows off the canyon walls. The idyllic setting with treacherous boulders and vertical drops also shows how Moran descended into the canyon to capture his most famous subject from new perspectives—very carefully.

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