Dewitt Parshall (1864-1956) - Gray Light, Grand Canyon - Desert Landscape 1925 Oil on Masonite P3418

This is one of his famous studies of the Grand Canyon. Sombre and deeply felt.

Art measures 8" x 10" and the frame is 1 3/4" x 13 1/4". From a private collection.

An expressive painter of coastal and landscape views, DeWitt Parshall was born in Buffalo, New York, and graduated in 1885 from Hobart College where he irritated faculty members because of his ability to do caricatures.  He also studied at DeVeaux school in Niagara Falls, the Royal Academy at Dresden, and from 1886-1882, had further study at the Julian and Cormon academies in Paris.

He set up a studio in New York City, but his interest was western landscape, and he became a member of the Society of Painters of the West. From 1910 to 1917, he did a series of paintings of the Grand Canyon for which he remains best known.  Full of emotion and color, they have been labeled "expressive".  In 1917, he moved for the remainder of his life to Santa Barbara, California, where he specialized in coastals and landscapes.

He was also the father of the artist Douglass Parshall, also represented in our collection, who annotated the back of this painting.