The Grand Canyon trip that started it all.

Back in 1982 artists Merrill and Jeanne Mahaffey invited 30 fellow artists to join them on a 10 day raft trip down the Colorado River. The 200 mile trip was known as R.A.F.T “The 1982 Recessions Artists Float Trip.” Ted Hatch River Expeditions rafting company was chosen for the excursion. The starting point would be Lee’s Ferry and the take out point would be below Lava Falls.

Even though painters made up the majority of the artists selected, poets, writers, jewelry makers, sculptors, ceramicists and photographers were also represented. To get to Arizona Peter would fly with fellow artist Woody Payne (who also happened to be the pilot) Wilma Parker and Jean-Michel Addor. Along the way Peter was able to photograph Lake Powell and Glen Canyon from the air. Once on the river it is hard to say just how many roles of film Peter shot. Merrill Mahaffey estimated that at least 30,000 film exposures were taken on the 10 day trip by the participants. Peter’s main photographic interests were Havasu and Lava Falls, Stone Creek and Marble and Matkatambia Canyons. He also took many photographs of the rafts in the muddy Colorado River rapids. Peter did many wonderful paintings from this trip. I found a note in Peter’s file where he talks about the painting Marble Canyon 2. He wrote “Cold light on polished granite and strong diagonals create visual drama. Ambiguous scale is rescued by a few small clumps of grass- lack of foreground horizontals leaves the viewer floating.” See picture attached.

To sum up the excursion Merrill described the group as “a boisterous tribe of ten year old.” From what Peter told me a lot of beer was consumed on this trip but also a lot of great art work was also created. The artwork created would end up in an exhibition a few years down the road.

In April of 1984 Peter and I attended the opening of the R.A.F.T exhibition at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. The first thing we saw as we walked in the door were these giant rafts suspended from the ceiling. The next thing we noticed was the magnificent art work on the walls. The show would close on June 3rd and then travel to other venues in Flagstaff and Yuma.

In 2007 a group of 20 former participants gathered to celebrate the 25 anniversary of this excursion.

Peter had a show at The Leslie Levy Gallery in Scottsdale of paintings of the raft boats in the muddy churning rapids. This August marks the 40th anniversary of the trip.

Pat Weaver on National Trails Day and Peter's work in the Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado

National Trails Day is an annual event that takes place on the 1st Saturday of June. This date was established back in 1993 by The American Hiking Society, a non profit organization. Their mission is to bring awareness to the many trails all over the USA and to promote public service participation to maintain and clean up trails in local communities. Trails are not just for hikers. They are used by runners, horseback riders, cross country skiers, bicyclists and dirt bike riders just to name a few. Trails provide access to waterways for fishing, kayaking and canoeing.

On a trip to Colorado in 2014 Peter visited Garden of the Gods Park. Garden of the Gods is 1,300 acres of massive sandstone formations located at the foot of Pikes Peak on the west side of Colorado Springs. The park is a registered Natural National Landmark and has many hiking trails and a visitor center that hosts 2 million visitors a year. For over 3,000 years Native Americans considered the region a neutral sacred ground and a hub for trade between nomadic tribes. The Ute’s tribe was native to the area and used it as their home during the winter months. The area received its official name back in 1859 when two railroad land surveyors, Metancthon Beach and Rufus Cable, first came upon these towering fins of jagged rock jutting over 300 feet in the air. They were scouting out land for what would be the town of Old Colorado City. The story goes that Beach exclaimed” This would be a capital place for a beer garden.” Cable replied “Beer garden! Why, this place is fit for the gods to assemble.”

In 1878 Professor James Kerr found a dinosaur skeleton in what would become the park area. The dinosaur was named Theiophytalia Kerri. Theios in the Greek language means “belonging to the Gods” and phytalia means “garden.”

In1879 railroad mogul Charles Perkins bought the portion of the land that contained the majority of the unusual formations. In 1909, two years after his passing, his family deeded the property to the city of Colorado Springs with the stipulation that the park would always remain “forever free” to the public.

Just like Charles Perkins there are people in your own community who advocate for the preservation of public land, spaces and trails. In our small community two local residents develop a program called “Nick’s Interns”. The program was established after their son Nick passed away in a tragic car accident. Nick was a person who grew up loving the great outdoors and had spent much of his high school and college years working outdoor jobs. “Nick’s Interns” employs teenagers to work outdoors in a conservation program that provides trail restoration, stream clean up, invasive plant species removal and more. The program also trains the participants for future opportunities in the field of environmental conservation management.

 I will leave you with a quote from Edward Abbey “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

Pat Weaver on Arches National Monument and Arches National Park and Holbrook's paintings.

Arches National Monument April 12th 1929 /Arches National Park April 12th1971

Long before Apple tracking devices it was pretty easy to tell where Peter was in his travels by the dates of his paintings. Nothing was more exciting for Peter than to be out on location. It’s about the only time in his life he would be up before dawn to catch the sun rise over a spot of interest. Peter and I and our daughter made a trip to Arches back in 1985. Peter would return to the park in 1991, 1997 and 2009.

The early history of the area indicates that hunter-gatherers migrated to the region 10,000 years ago at the end of the ice age. 2,000 years ago Ancestral Pueblos began cultivating beans, maze and squash there. Over the following years many nomadic tribes such as the Utes, Navajo, Shoshone and Paiutes would use and inhabit the area. In 1775 the first Spanish missionaries arrived, possibly looking for a new travel route to California. 100 years later European missionaries, farmers, prospectors and ranchers set down roots.

The park contains the world’s largest (over 2,000) concentration of natural sandstone formations. The most recognized being the 52 feet tall “Delicate Arch.” It is said that early cowboys had their own names for this arch such as “The Chaps”, “School Teachers Bloomers” and the “Pant’s Crotch.” Delicate Arch Trail (3 miles round trip) is considered the most popular trail in the park. It is rated difficult because of lack of shade and slippery rocks. I remember Peter telling me the story of him being at Delicate Arch as the moon came up. He was able to take many wonderful photographs of the event but soon realized he didn’t have a flashlight to get down off the rocks. Luckily the moon provided the light he needed to find his way back to his truck.

Peter did 7 paintings of Delicate Arch, the largest being 46x70. This painting was a sweeping view of the arch, its surrounding rock structure and the La Sal mountains in the background. Peter also did paintings of other park formations such as The Garden of Eden, The Organ, Double Arch, The Marching Men, The Devil’s Garden, Klondike Bluffs and Landscape Arch. Many of these paintings are still available for sale. See jpegs attached.

I will leave you with a quote from artist Thomas Eakins: “The big artist…..keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools.”

Pat Weaver's letter about "White Mountain Patriarch" commissioned for the federal courthouse in Sacramento

According to the dictionary the definition of a forest is “a large area covered with trees and undergrowth.” This description seems pretty vague but maybe that’s because each forest is so complex and has its own distinct ecosystem.


Back around 1997 Peter, along with a dozen California artists, received a GSA (General Services Administration) commission to do artwork for the soon to be constructed Robert T. Matsui U.S Courthouse in downtown Sacramento CA. Doing a commission can be a long drawn out process. This particular commission had to go through many levels of committee approval, which meant Peter had to travel 7 hours to attend a series of meetings. After a year of emails, meetings and sketch submissions, Peter was finally assigned a large vertical wall on one of the upper floors. With this information in hand Peter set off to find the perfect California subject matter. This led him to the White Mountain region of the Inyo National Forest in Eastern California. The word Inyo in the Native American language is translated to “Dwelling Place of the Great Spirit”. What better name for a forest that houses the world’s oldest living trees, the ancient Great Basin Bristlecone Pines.


Peter’s interest in unusual trees and their root systems dates back to when he first moved to California in 1970. His show at the Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago in 1976 and the William Sawyer Gallery in San Francisco were entirely this subject matter. So it was not surprising that Peter would see the beauty in these ancient survivors. These gnarled, weather beaten resilient trees ( Pinus Longaeva) are thought to be at least 5,000 years old. Scientists list them as the oldest living non- clonal organism on the planet. These trees grow in the sub-alpine regions of Eastern California and are scattered through the high mountain regions of Nevada and to a lesser extent in Utah. The most famous of these trees is named Methuselah, which is listed as 4,850 years old. The forest service says there is an older tree but they refuse to give out its name or location for protection. Fragments of dead trees, trunks and limbs scatter the forest floor and provide nutrients for the living trees. However most new seedlings die within the first year with a mortality rate of 99%.


About a month before the installation of Peter’s commissioned painting titled “White Mountain Patriarch,” a spark from a PG&E electrical transformer started a grass fire about 1/4th of a mile west of our house. When I heard about this fire all I could think of was the painting and all the meetings, field work and emails that it took for the commission to finally approve the final design. I rushed down to Peter studio and grabbed the painting. This was not an easy task, since the painting was 72x48 inches. Since Peter had gone to town earlier in his pick up truck I wasn’t sure what to do next with the painting except to slowly start walking it down the county road away from our house and the fire. Lucky for us the fire was put out rather quickly by local volunteers. When Peter arrived home he was surprised to see his painting in the living room. I told him the story of the fire and he gave me a big hug and thanked me for my “heroic effort” to save his artwork from becoming just a pile of ash.


The Robert T Matsui U.S. Courthouse was completed in 1999. Peter and I, along with the other commissioned artists and guests, were invited to the grand opening. I am not sure if you can go into the courthouse these days just to have a look at the art. Better yet, if you’re in this neck of the woods, go out for a hike and have a look at the ancient trees in the Inyo Forest in person!


Pat Weaver's Grand Canyon News Letter

It was in 1977 that Peter and I first saw the Grand Canyon when we took a tourist charter flight over it. I remember it being a very small plane, maybe only 6 seats as opposed to the 19 seater that operate today. From the air we could see the vastness of this mile deep arid-land eroded gorge that was formed somewhere around 6 million years ago.

In late summer of 1977 Peter bought himself a BMW motorcycle. By February of 1978 he was itching to take the bike on the road. Somehow Peter convinced me that a mid winter trip to the Grand Canyon would be a great adventure. How does one prepare for a motorcycle trip in the dead of winter? You wear lots of layers. I personally wore two pairs of socks, gloves, ski masks, wool long underwear, sweaters, and a leather jacket with a down jacket over it. All we could carry, and this included camera equipment, had to fit in two side saddle bags. I don’t remember it being that cold until we got to the Grand Canyon. Snow covered the ground and all the lookouts. This was just the type of conditions Peter sought to photograph. The snow provides a relief from the normal sun baked earth tone colors of the canyon, especially noticeable in the hot summer months.

On our way home we ran into a typical torrential California rain storm. For four hours we battled the weather. By the time we got home we were soaked to the bone. Peter lit a fire in our wood stove and we took off our boots and placed them under the stove. For the next 3 days you could hear the boots sizzle as the water slowly evaporated. The whole experience was one we remembered fondly for years to come. The Grand Canyon became a focal point of Peter’s career as a painter of the Southwest.

In an interview for American Art Collector back in 2006 Peter made this statement about painting the region “It might seem that all the work is done in an effort to really know these places, and that is true to a degree. But it is also true that I wouldn’t want to live here enjoying a view that people come from all over the world to see. For then I might really know the place and wouldn’t feel the quickening of the blood I get each time I now approach it.” He also stated “A painting can’t go into geographic detail, but great age is felt in the shapes, textures and colors.”

About the painting “Stormy Zoroaster” (40x50) Peter wrote: “I watched this storm collect on the North Rim and spill into the canyon abyss. I have painted the view maybe a dozen times, the drama still stirs me.” Peter considered this painting as close a definition of his artwork as any he could have chosen. He also painted a smaller study. In both paintings you can see the excitement in how he handled the sky.

In 1994 Peter produced a lithograph of the Grand Canyon titled “Sumner Butte”. This lithograph is in the permanent collection of The Springfield Art Museum (Missouri), The Museum of Northern Arizona, The Tucson Art Museum and The Museum of Southwest Art in Midland Texas. We have a limited amount of these lithographs (unframed) still available for sale. If you are interested please let us know.

Pat Weaver's latest news letter about Zion, a frequent Peter Holbrook Subject.

On November 19th Zion National Park will turn 102. For centuries the region had been the home to many Native American cultures. In 1872 John Wesley Powell first named the area Mukuntuweap, which means “straight canyon” or “straight up place” in the Paiute language. Prehistoric rock art is still visible in many locations in and around the park. It is thought that most of the rock art had been created before the 12th century A.D. by the Virgin Anasazi culture.

Photographers Carleton Watkins (1829-1916), Charles Savage (1832-1909) John Hiller (1843-1925) created some the first western images of the region. Unfortunately the black and white technology of the time could not capture the brilliant colors of the canyons.

One of the first paintings of Zion was created by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh in 1903. Dellenbaugh was an artist and assistant topographer on John Wesley Powell’s second expedition of the Colorado River from 1871-1873. In 1904 he wrote an article for Scribner’s Magazine and introduced the readers to Zion Canyon.

He wrote:

“One hardly knows just how to think of it. Never before has such a naked mountain of rock entered into our minds! Without a shred of disguise its transcendent form rises preeminent. There is almost nothing to compare it to. Niagara has the beauty of energy, the Grand Canyon, of immensity, the Yellowstone, of singularity, Yosemite of altitude; the ocean, of power; this Great Temple, of eternity-”

That same year his paintings were exhibited at the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis.

Thomas Moran visited Zion with John Wesley Powell in 1873. Like many artists Moran made sketches and obtained photographs to provide materials for his paintings to be completed in his studio. His painting “The Rio Virgin -Southern Utah” was painted in 1917, 44 years after his first and only visit to Zion

Over Peter’s 50 year career as an artist he painted many of the formations and landscapes in and around Zion such as Angel’s Landing, The Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa , Echo Canyon, The Sister’s, Mt. Carmel Valley, the Virgin River, Kolob Canyon and Court of the Patriarchs.

Court of the Patriarch’s (formerly known as The Three Wise Men) is a sandstone cliff on the south face of the Three Patriarchs. The Three Patriarchs are Abraham Peak, Isaac Peak and Jacob Peak. They were named by Fredrick Fisher in 1916 for these biblical figures. In front of the Three Peaks is Mount Moroni. Here is an insight into Peter’s technique and approach for his painting “ Court of the Patriarchs.”

“Court of the Patriarchs” illustrates a strategy for managing excessive textural detail that might distract from the overall effect. I chose backing lighting to greatly simplify the large shapes and to eliminate all but a few highlights. I carefully shifted from tight focus to soft focus and included a controlled modulation of color from foreground yellows and oranges to background purples.

Court of the Patriarchs along with Abraham, Isaac and Moroni are available through the Marshall Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. The other paintings are available through Peter’s estate.

There is so much more information online about the park than I could cram into a one page newsletter. Zion also offers an artist-in- residence program to professional artists. This information can be viewed on the parks website.


SFWA Gallery

Peter Holbrook’s paintings are on exhibit in the Artist Salon at the San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, 647 Irving Street in San Francisco from April 2 - May 4.

Come to our reception on April 13 from 3:00 - 5:00 PM

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM; Sunday noon- 4:00 PM

SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART

Peter's Holbrook's Brushpile (1976) was recently donated to Saint Mary's College Museum of Art and will be added to their existing collection of Holbrook works in July.

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Healdsburg Center for the Arts

On September 22-24, 2017, the Healdsburg Art Center presented WEST | SOUTHWEST, a selection of Holbrook paintings featuring the southwest canyons and Yosemite.  The show attracted much favorable attention.   

Palo Alto

If you are in the Bay Area, we can arrange for a private viewing at your convenience.  Reproductions of the paintings only suggest the depth and presence of his work.  They really must be seen in person to appreciate how they evoke their own reality and a powerful sense of place. The more you look, the more you see.