Original 1924 George Elbert Burr ‘waldo New Mexico’ Colored Pencil Drawing

Original 1924 george elbert burr (1859-1939) ‘waldo new mexico’ colored pencil drawing

this is just a great original piece. This is the first time I have had a george elbert burr that was not one of his etchings. His etchings come to market fairly often and I have handled quite a few of them over the last decade. This is the first original. For those not familiar with the artist, I have included his biography below. This is a wonderful colored pencil on paper landscape view of waldo new mexico. Drawing measures 10 3/8 x 13 3/4 inches. Signed and dated in pencil lower right and located lower left. The drawing is in excellent condition as it was restored and preserved back in 1994. It comes with the original label from 1994 that was done by the conservator explaining what was done to the work. There is also an encapsulated label “208” which I am sure corresponds to some particular exhibition that this was in. Hinged into archival matte and backing. Ready to be framed. Matte measures 18 x 22 inches.

For those not familiar with the artist his biography from a gallery that specializes in his work reads: “George Elbert Burr moved from his birthplace of Monroe Falls, Ohio to Cameron, Missouri when he was ten years old. His father opened a hardware store and George, using the rail pass purchased for buying trips, began traveling around the region to sketch the landscape. He began to make etchings on scraps of zinc while still employed at the hardware store and, in December of 1878, enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago. He would last only three months, leaving to return to Cameron, where he worked at the store and married a local woman named Elizabeth Rogers. He continued his work, becoming employed as an instructor of drawing and, eventually, an illustrator for such publications as Scribner’s, Harper’s, The Observer, Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and The Cosmopolitan. In 1892, Burr undertook a four-year project to illustrate a catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heber R. Bishop Collection of jade. The work as arduous, amounting to a thousand etchings of the collection, but earned Burr enough to travel Europe with his wife for more than four years.

Upon returning to the United States, Burr settled in New Jersey, where he earned a living selling paintings and prints in galleries from New York to Kansas City. George’s rapidly deteriorating health led the couple to look for a new place of residence, however, and they moved to Denver, Colorado in 1906. Here, George completed Mountain Moods, one of the two famous etching series he would complete during his lifetime. He became a member of the Brooklyn Society of Etchers and the New York Society of Etchers and traveled throughout Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico. As Burr aged his health worsened and, in 1924, he moved with his wife to Phoenix. In Phoenix, Burr served as president of the Phoenix Fine Arts Association. He would remain in Phoenix until his death in 1939.”