Gunnar Widforss (Swedish American, 1879–1934)
Grand Canyon Pictorial Map, ca. 1925
Gouache on paper
Image: 20½ × 40 in.
Gunnar Widforss combines landscape painting and cartography in this sweeping aerial view of the Grand Canyon. Roads and routes wind around the richly colored formations, while the Santa Fe Railway emblem and a stylized figure derived from Pueblo cultural imagery identify the work’s commercial purpose. Created for the railway’s advertising department, the map promoted the Grand Canyon as a destination accessible through Santa Fe passenger travel. Its imagery also reflects how the company used Indigenous cultures to construct a romantic identity for Southwestern tourism.
Widforss was among the most accomplished painters of America’s national parks. Celebrated for the geological precision and luminous color of his watercolors, he worked extensively at the Grand Canyon during the 1920s and 1930s and became closely identified with the landscape. The National Park Service later named the North Rim’s Widforss Trail in his honor. This unusually large work is significant for uniting his intimate knowledge of the canyon with the history of the Santa Fe Railway, whose transportation and advertising helped establish the Grand Canyon as an international tourist destination.
Provenance and exhibition history
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company, Advertising Department, inventory no. 519, according to a label on the reverse
Exhibited: Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Collectors of the West Celebrate 50 Years, January 23–March 14, 2010
