American Dreamer: The Art of Philip C Curtis

Honored as one of "Arizona History Makers," Curtis and his meticulously crafted, charmingly enigmatic paintings have been too little known outside his region, a situation this finely produced retrospective volume seeks to rectify. Essays by five well-published curators provide a cultural and biographical context for Curtis' distinctive paintings. The surrealistic aspects of his work and the influence of such artists as Rene Magritte and Stuart Davis are noted, but the truth is, Curtis is an original. No one else has ever gazed out at the flat desert landscape of the American Southwest and envisioned it as a stage for the circus performers, musicians, and elegant figures right out of Victorian melodramas that pirouette within his dreamlike, eye-teasing tableaux.

• Out of Print
• New Condition
• Hardcover
• Hudson Hills Press in association with Phoenix Art Museum, 1999
• 180 pages
• Dead stock purchased from the Philip C. Curtis Charitable Trust.