It is an exciting homecoming for a sought after Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton painting. “Valley Little Colorado,” a landscape of a red mesa under a cloud-filled sky, is now at Flagstaff’s Museum of Northern Arizona. It will be unveiled to the public in the Sarah Lee Branigar Reception Room of the Museum at 3:30 p.m. on March 25, the day on which Colton was born in1889. Colton, a professional artist who co-founded MNA in 1928 with Dr. Harold Sellers Colton, painted this landscape early in her career, around 1925.
Museum Trustee Susan Olberding, who is engaged in a research and documentation project for Colton’s artwork, discovered the painting for sale at an art gallery in Pennsylvania last fall. The Museum had a strong interest in adding this painting to its art collection and was able to accomplish this endeavor through the anonymous support of an interested group of donors who generously contributed its $13,000 cost.
“It is important to MNA to honor Mrs. Colton through this acquisition,” said Museum Director Dr. Robert Breunig, “not only because she is one of MNA’s founders, but also because she is a significant, if under-recognized, painter of the land and people of the West. Over time MNA hopes to acquire the strongest possible representation of Mrs. Colton’s work for our collection.”
Colton graduated with honors from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women in 1908 and became one of “The Ten” of Philadelphia, a progressive group of women painters and sculptors who worked and exhibited together. Colton exhibited with “The Ten” from the 1910s to 1940, and especially became known for her portraits of the Native people she met and the landscapes she visited in northern Arizona. Her work received critical acclaim in Philadelphia and New York City. The following mention appeared in the September 2, 1920 edition of The Christian Science Monitor:
“In her Arizona canvases, Mrs. Colton gives sway to her love of color. One is impressed
by the sense of vast remoteness that she manages to capture for these western paintings
that are bringing her ever-increasing recognition.”
Colton was elected to the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame in 1981, its inaugural year. Her many contributions to the state of Arizona include a colorful artistic record of its natural and cultural heritage through her paintings, and a host of efforts that encouraged Arizona artists. Among these were the summertime Hopi Craftsman Exhibition and Navajo Craftsman Exhibition, which Colton launched through the Museum in 1931 and 1949 respectively, and which continue to this day as the Museum’s Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture (in early July) and the Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture (in late July).