Harrison R. Crandall: Creating a Vision of Grand Teton National Park - Hardcover

Barrick, Kenneth A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1423634004 ISBN 13: 9781423634003

Publisher: Gibbs Smith, 2013

Synopsis

Experience Teton country from the eyes of a grand visionary

Harrison R. Crandall was the first official photographer of Grand Teton National Park. In addition to his marvelous iconic landscape photos of Teton country, many of which were meticulously hand colored with a painter’s eye, many of his original color paintings, drawings, and illustrations are featured. With a wealth of archival photographs, many of which have never been published before, this book is both a visual treat for the eyes as well as an authoritative chronicle of Harrison Crandall’s life and work.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth A. Barrick began his teaching and research career in the Department of Geography at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1985, where he specializes in physical geography and natural resource management. He lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.

From the Inside Flap

Harris on R. (Hank) Crandall

(1887 1970) was an outstanding national park artist who deserves recognition among the luminaries of the early national park movement. His early life was marked by exploration, from his home on a berry farm in Kansas, to art schools in Kansas and California, and to a commercial sign shop in smalltown Idaho. However, he seemed destined from childhood to focus his six-decade-long art career on creating a vision of his sacred mountains, Wyoming s Teton Range, and Grand Teton National Park. He was the park s first and only official photographer and Jackson Hole s first resident artist.

Upon moving to Teton country, Crandall opened a picture shop and art studio in a rustic log building that he constructed on his homestead, where he and his wife, Hilda, learned to carve out a pioneer life among abundant scenery, wildlife, interesting neighbors, mountaineers, and dude ranch guests. Crandall s landscape oil paintings offered near photographic realism rendered in bold, amplified colors, and sometimes created on very large canvases. His favorite photographic compositions captured the Tetons with luminous skies, cowgirls and cowboys in action with their horses, Native Americans at their powwows, and wildflowers in portraiture.

Crandall s art now graces many American ranches and homes, but his Teton landscapes were also prized by theNational Park Service managers of the early twentieth century, who were striving to create, define, and attract visitorsto the parks before mass tourism. Horace Albright, director of the National Park Service from 1929 to 1933, said it bestwhen he remembered Crandall as one of nature s noblemen. Albright predicted that Crandall s contributions would figure prominently in the history of Grand Teton National Park. Crandall s professional instincts could not be contained by a single creative endeavor. In addition to his landscape art, he was also a photographer, musician, vaudevillian-style actor, architect, cinematographer, and park concessionaire and businessman. In addition to showcasing many original color paintings, drawings, and illustrations, this volume also includes a wealth of archival photographs, many of which have never before been published, resulting in both a visual treat for the eyes and an authoritative chronicle of Harrison Crandall s life and work.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Harrison R. “Hank” Crandall (1887–1970) (Fig. 2) and his wife, Hildegard (or “Hilda,” as Hank preferred) (Fig. 3), came to the Teton Range and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for reasons that were intensely personal―to raise a family and interpret the place they loved through Hank’s landscape paintings and fine art photography. However, their achievements transcended their personal stories. Hank left a legacy of national park art that created a timeless vision of Grand Teton National Park and vicinity. The Crandall Picture Shop and Studio (hereafter referred to as the Crandall Studio) offered souvenirs to countless park visitors, thus providing them with a tangible remembrance of their vacation. Today, Hank’s landscape paintings and his unique hand-painted photographs grace many fine homes in Jackson Hole and across the nation. Hank and Hilda’s old homestead property was returned to nature and will always be preserved at the heart of the park (Fig. 1). In 1922, Hank and Hilda Crandall packed all of their possessions into the back of their Ford Model T truck (Fig. 4) and traveled from their home in Idaho to Jackson Hole. They navigated the primitive road across the Teton Pass and began an adventure to live out their dream. Hank wanted to interpret his ideal landscape― the Teton Range. Like so many Americans before them, the Crandall family had the fortitude and perseverance to make their dream come true. They made it through tough years of dry homesteading in Jackson Hole, building and running an art studio during the Great Depression and World War II, and weathering frontier controversies during turbulent times. The family operated the Crandall Studio for 34 years (Fig. 5). They also operated a satellite studio in the shadow of Jackson Lake Dam in the old village of Moran. Today, old Moran exists in memories because the town site was given back to nature many years ago.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1423634004
• ISBN 13: 9781423634003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240