Road in the Cuyamacas

Object Details

Artist

Charles Reiffel, born Indianapolis, IN 1862-died San Diego, CA 1942

Exhibition Label

A narrow, winding path entices the viewer into this rocky wilderness in Southern California's Cuyamaca Mountains. Above the rugged peaks, clouds gather in formations that repeat those of the rocks below. Golden light streams down between the clouds, picking out a boulder here and a treetop there. Artist Charles Reiffel used bright dabs of red, orange, and blue paint to suggest sunlight sparkling on rain-wet stones and pine needles. It was this kind of spectacular scenery that had persuaded Reiffel to make an unplanned move from his home in Connecticut to San Diego in 1925. In this painting of the California countryside he loved, Reiffel spoke to viewers in distant Washington, D.C., praising the beauties of nature.1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label

Luce Center Label

In 1933 the Works Progress Administration hired Charles Reiffel for forty-two dollars a week. The government wanted to provide some relief for artists who could find no jobs after the Wall Street crash, and devised the Federal Art Project to make painters and sculptors part of the nation's workforce. In a show honoring these artists, Reiffel exhibited Road in the Cuyamacas along with three other paintings. He accentuated the otherworldly quality of the craggy California mountains with clouds that echo the topography. One critic praised the artist's ability to capture "the open places where a bit of vegetation struggles to keep its hold upon a rocky slope." (Stevens, San Diego Evening Tribune, November 17, 1929, quoted in Petersen, Second Nature: Four Early San Diego Landscape Painters, 1991)

Credit Line

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor

ca. 1933-1934

Object number

1964.1.176

Restrictions & Rights

CC0

Type

Painting

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

40 1/8 x 50 3/8 in. (101.9 x 128.0 cm)

See more items in

Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection

Department

Painting and Sculpture

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Topic

Landscape\California

Landscape\rocks

Landscape\mountain\Cuyamaca Mountains

New Deal\Public Works of Art Project\California

Record ID

saam_1964.1.176

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk775afe1e3-2c4a-442d-a831-821429ba3b37