American Pioneers c. 1935

Conrad Buff made this artwork called 'American Pioneers' at an unknown date. What a landscape! The shapes, monumental, dark and light. To make this, Buff must have been thinking about how to find the forms. I’m imagining the artist with a pencil, finding each line to create a huge space on a relatively small piece of paper. What's going on with these pioneers? The shapes here are so interesting, like the way the artist has made the rock formations—that’s exciting, the tonal shifts from light to dark. I wonder if this is how he felt traveling through a vast landscape, the stark contrast between light and shadow, the struggle for survival. You can feel Buff’s hand in this, the confidence of the marks, the sureness of each line. It’s like he's saying, "This is it, this is the West, this is America." Buff has something to tell us about the pioneer spirit that feels immediate and true.