What Does the Navajo Family by Ted Degrazia Represent
Ettore (Ted) DeGrazia was born in 1909 to Italian immigrants in the pocket-sized mining camp of Morenci in then Territorial Arizona. He spent his early on years playing in and roaming about the barren hills surrounding his home. His playmates were Native American children from the nearby Apache Indian reservation. During these early pre-teen years, Ettore'southward interest in art began to develop despite the harshness of the state and the rough and tumble being in a primitive mining army camp. His inventiveness absorbed the colors of his environment and his artistic abilities were kindled. His earliest works were uncomplicated carvings from dirt that were hardened in his mother's kitchen stove.
In 1920, when he was eleven years quondam, Phelps Dodge closed the mine in Morenci. Ted'south parents were then forced to uproot their family of seven children and return to Italy. There they remained for five years until give-and-take came of the re-opening of the mine. During these formative years, Ted was exposed to music and religious art – ii creative aspects that were seriously lacking in the dusty mining camp of his early on years.
Soon after returning to Morenci, Ted DeGrazia entered first class at the age of xvi. He had forgotten English language and had to larn it all over again. It was at this time that he became known equally "Ted." I of his teachers anglicized his name "Ettore" into "Theodore" which naturally became shortened to "Ted." During this fourth dimension, his music abilities developed and he became quite proficient at playing a trumpet. At the age of twenty-three he graduated from High School.
After working in the mines for a spell, he decided to move on to Tucson, where, in 1932 he enrolled in the music program at the Academy of Arizona. He had little money in those days and had to support himself and pay for his education past taking odd jobs and playing at night with a big band. It was at one of these performances that he met his showtime wife, Alexandra. After dropping out of school, they married in 1936 and moved to Bisbee, Arizona. Three children were born from this union, just it didn't last and the couple divorced in 1946.
While living in Bisbee, DeGrazia started creating his early paintings, and the popular Arizona Highways mag took note and began featuring the artist and his work in their pages. This was a relationship that lasted the rest of his career. This early work was a result of his impressions received from all-encompassing travels throughout the surface area of southern Arizona and into northern United mexican states. There, he got to know the people and the lands intimately and his work became a reflection of what he saw and experienced.
In 1942 Ted went to Mexico City to farther his fine art studies. While there, he met both Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, two of Mexico's greatest artists. He worked as an intern for both and actually helped them in their mural work at the Palacio Municipal and the Hospital of Jesus Nazarene in Mexico Urban center. These 2 prominent artists too set up a solo exhibition of DeGrazia'due south paintings at the Palacio de Bellas Artes where they were warmly received. Orozco claimed that DeGrazia would be "1 of the best American painters."
DeGrazia returned to Arizona in 1943 and approached the Academy of Arizona to display the paintings shown in Mexico City. They refused. Hurt past their rebuff, he all the same went on to finish up his teaching. As well, a Bachelor of Arts in Music, he proceeded to attain a Bachelor of Art in Fine art, and a Masters of Art degree. His formal instruction was completed past 1945. During this time, he had trouble getting his paintings shown. No gallery was interested in displaying his piece of work. So, he decided to build his own. With a trivial borrowed money and few Mexican and Indian friends, together they congenital an adobe building with enough bare walls within to make full with his own paintings.
The next few years were filled with extensive traveling throughout Arizona and United mexican states, where he studied the ways of the local Indian tribes, ever committing their lore to paint and canvas. During this period of time, he did pause long enough to meet Marion Sheret and they became husband and wife at a wedding ceremony in the jungles of United mexican states in 1947. In 1951, they bought a ten acre site in the foothills e of Tucson afterward urban sprawl forced them out of the adobe gallery built 6 years earlier. Here, Ted DeGrazia built his Gallery in the Sun. It still stands today as a testament to the homo and his piece of work.
A year earlier, 1950, proved to be a turning point in DeGrazia's financial world. A gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona arranged to set a one-man show. It was a rousing success and now he was on his way. The globe now took notice and before long was beating a path to his door. Every bit the years past, DeGrazia busied himself with painting and filling the walls of his Gallery. For a break, he would travel to his favorite identify of all, the Superstition Mountains, east of what is now the Phoenix Metro expanse. Home of the Lost Dutchman Mine, there he would sketch, prospect for gilded, and campsite out under the stars.
Ted DeGrazia passed from this life in the twelvemonth 1982.
Source: https://degrazia-art.com/ted-degrazia-biography/
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