ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Throughout modern history, the mining industry has transformed the American West, competing with the scenic landscape on its own terms. In the first half of the 20th century, large-scale and open pit mines across Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah dramatically altered the natural environment and dictated the lives of those who worked in them, with cyclical booms that provided employment for generations of families and economic crashes that often left ghost towns and mass unemployment in their wake.
In the Copper State, mining has been fundamental to Arizona’s regional identity since the time of statehood in 1912, when an economy built around the five C’s—cattle, cotton, citrus, climate, and copper—began to take shape. In fact, mining, ranching, agriculture, and tourism still significantly define Arizona’s cultural identity, even today.
Over the decades, mining has continued to shape natural landscapes across the western United States, creating striking views in their own right. However, public knowledge on the destructive environmental and health effects of mining, as well as its massive impact on social, economic, and political systems, has increased, revealing the vexed legacy of the industry.
Through more than 80 paintings, prints, and sculptures, Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West explores the modern evolution of mining imagery from the 1910s to the present. The exhibition begins with works from the early- to mid-20th century, when artists portrayed regional themes and industries in their work, inspired, in part, by New Deal programs during the 1930s and early 1940s. These paintings showcase images of open pit mines and coal tipples, the towns that grew up around mines and were abandoned when they closed, and the miners and their families who lived, worked, and toiled in those environments.
IMAGE CREDIT
Helen Katharine Forbes, Mountains and Miner’s Shack, 1940. Oil on canvas. The Schoen Collection: American Scene Painting; Courtesy of the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia.
Contemporary works created into the 2010s stand in contrast by demonstrating how artists have, over time, become more attuned to the monumental impact that humans, technology, mining, and other industries have on the natural world, with a number examining the ongoing legacy of pollution specifically.
Altogether, Landscapes of Extraction offers a panoramic view of the art of mining in the American West from the past century, illuminating how artists have long been fascinated with interpreting and conveying mining scenes.
IMAGE CREDIT
Lew Davis, Morning at the Little Daisy, Jerome (Mañana en Little Daisy, Jerome), 1936, 1936. Oil on panel. Gift of Talley Industries in memory of Franz G. Talley.
EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of National Endowment for the Humanities, Men’s Arts Council, Freeport-McMoRan Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Exhibition Endowment Fund, KJZZ, and Ironwood Cancer & Research Centers, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.
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Phoenix Art Museum explores history and art of mining in the American West in upcoming exhibition
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