Little is known of the earliest aboriginal art in Colorado. Few traces remain of the Basket Maker culture. The Cliff Dwellers were accomplished in the ceramic arts, but decoration of pottery appears to have been developed by them only a short time before their mysterious disappearance. Their painting was purely ceremonial, and the few examples of their petroglyphs that have been found are so highly stylized that in most instances the subjects can only be conjectured. The Indian nomads of plains and mountains painted on leather, both for decorative purposes and to record historical events, using highly developed geometric designs as well as human and animal figures; the latter were often strongly and imaginatively conceived.

The first pictorial representations of the State, it appears, were by Samuel Seymour, a draughtsman member of Major Stephen H. Long's expedition in 1820; his work appeared as illustrations of the published account of the expedition. In 1832 George Catlin, a Philadelphia law student, came west to live among the Indians and paint their portraits and mode of life; much of his work is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. His Illustrations of the Manner, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, published in 1841, constitutes a significant chapter in the history of American genre painting. Another early artist was J. M. Stanley, who came in the 1840’s to paint Indian and pioneer life; his work, for the most part, appeared only in the annals of the Smithsonian Institution. John C. Fremont, a better engineer and soldier than artist, made sketches of the mountains on his expedition of 1842. Others of the pioneer period were Walter Carey, illustrator for various periodicals, and John ("Captain Jack") Rowland, for many years staff artist on Harper s Weekly, who began painting western scenes in 1857. Rowland later studied in France and attained some recognition as a sculptor; his Soldiers' Monument (1907) stands on the lawn of the capitol at Denver, and several paintings of his earlier period are in private collections in Colorado.

These artists, largely self-taught, were followed by painters with formal European training—among others, Albert Bierstadt, who, brought to America as a child, returned to his native Dusseldorf, Germany, to study in the genre school of Auchenbach. Returning to America in 1858, he joined the Landers surveying expedition to the Colorado Rockies, where he found inspiration for most of his better-known works. On this first visit he executed Morning in the Rocky Mountains, as well as Rocky Mountains—Landers Peak, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York City. He painted prolifically on his many Western trips, and as art proved to be an excellent medium for selling stocks and bonds abroad to finance construction of railroads on the frontier, Bierstadt accumulated a larger bank balance than most painters, for his canvases caught the fancy of the wealthy, the Federal Government, and many foreign governments. The Congress appropriated $20,000 for one work, and the eccentric Earl of Dunraven paid $15,000 for his Park in Colorado. Among his better known canvases are Storm in the Rocky Mountains and The Last of the Buffalo, both painted in 1863. Examples of his work hang in museums at New York and Chicago, in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D. C., and in the Royal Academy, London.

Thomas Moran, equally a representative of the "heroic school" of landscape painting, was less well known than Bierstadt but perhaps technically superior. Trained in Europe, Moran came west in 1873 and made woodblocks for the U. S. Geological Survey, which possess great historical as well as artistic value. From time to time he essayed larger works in oil and also did illustrations for Harpers and the advertising literature of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Although his work was as grandiose in a way as Bierstadt's, Moran was not as facile and was less prized by galleries and patrons. Perhaps his best known painting is Mount of the Holy Cross, which created such a stir that it was bought almost sight unseen by a Colorado Maecenas.

Another well-known artist of this period was Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, who accompanied Bierstadt on his second visit in 1863 and painted scenes in the Rockies, the Sierras, and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest for use in railroad brochures. Worthington Whittrege came on a sketching tour with General J. Pope in 1865 and painted many landscapes—The Plains at the Base of the Rocky Mountains, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and The Platte River; the latter two were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1878. Emanuel Leutze, whose Washington Crossing the Delaware is known to all, and whose Westward The Course of the Empire appears in the capitol at Washington, visited Colorado in 1859 and painted several small water colors, one of which, Central City, Kansas Territory, is in the Denver Public Library. Harvey Young, native of Vermont, traveled through the Rockies for several years with burro, pick, shovel, gold pan, and sketch box; later, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad fitted him up with a studio car in which he painted many scenes reproduced in its "literature." Young, probably the first impressionist in the region, perfected a varnish process that gave his water colors the appearance of oil paintings.

In early days, with "practical" men busy mining or fighting Indians, art was regarded as a pastime for idlers and dreamers; instruction was available only when some established artist came to regain his health. But shortly after the founding of Colorado Springs in 1871 a pioneer art colony was established there by Eliza Greatorex, first woman member of the National Academy. Others in the group were Walter Parrish, Thomas Parrish, and the latter's wife; some of their work has been preserved in the El Paso Club and older residences in the city. An English landscapist, Walter Paris, and Hamilton Hamilton, portrait painter and instructor, exercised considerable influence in Colorado art circles at this time. Charles Craig, resident of Colorado Springs in the early 1880's, spent much of his time among the Ute, and his portraits of them appear in many collections. Other early artists of the city were W. H. Bancroft, largely self-taught, who had carried Thomas Moran's elaborate apparatus during the latter's visit in 1860 and was much influenced by him; Leslie J. Skelton, a prolific landscapist, who sold 5,000,000 postcard reproductions of his works; Carl G. Lotave, pupil of Zorn, known for his landscapes and murals; and John J. McClymont, whose portraits of Colorado business and political leaders brought him a reputation toward the close of the century.

The Broadmoor Art Academy, founded in 1919 under the sponsorship of Eliza Greatorex, had as its first instructor Robert Reid, N.A., who is represented by murals in the Library of Congress and other public buildings. The academy, now the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, has had on its staff such distinguished artists as Henry Varnum Poor, George Biddle, Pepino Mangravite, John Ward Lockwood, Arnold Blanch, and Willard Nash. The present director (1940) is Boardman Robinson, one of the country's foremost mural painters. An art appreciation department established a half century ago at Colorado College by Marie Sahm is now the Fine Arts Department of the institution. A distinctive contribution to Colorado art was made in 1902 when Artus Van Briggle established a pottery at Colorado Springs and from local clays fashioned pieces of striking and varied design, often making use of aboriginal motifs. His wife, Anne Gregory (Ritter), is one of the State's better-known painters.

Although organized in 1880 the Denver School of Fine Arts did not offer instruction until 1892 and in the same year established a museum. On its faculty was Preston Powers, who enjoyed an international reputation as a sculptor; his bust of Chief Justice Henry Thatcher appears on the walls of the Supreme Court Chambers in the State capitol, and his bronze Indian figure, The Closing Era, stands on the east lawn. After many difficulties, of which the want of public interest and support was chiefest, the Denver School of Fine Arts in 1924 became the Chappell School of Art, affiliated with the University of Denver. John E. Thompson, student of Laurens, Blanch, Cotte, and Tudor-Hart, one of the first to bring a knowledge of the Post-Impressionist school to Colorado, is now on the staff and has exercised great influence throughout the State, where some of his finest murals have been painted.

The first exhibition of the Denver Artists Club was held in 1894 with a display of oils, water colors, sculptures, and etchings by artists of the city and vicinity. From the club grew the Denver Art Association, which enrolled painters, workers in other media, and serious students and patrons of the arts; this group founded the present Denver Art Museum in the Municipal Building. The association's first director was Reginald Poland, now curator of the San Diego Museum; he was succeeded first by George William Eggers of the Chicago Art Institute and then by Arnold Ronnebeck, pupil of Maillot and Bourdelle, whose sculpture, lithographs, and other works are well known in America and abroad. In 1922 the Chappell residence was donated to the association as a gallery. The institution has been aided by gifts and loans of numerous private collections of pictures, furniture, and ceramics. Donald J. Bear, the present director (1940), has done much to make the Denver Art Museum a living institution.

Henry Read, an Englishman who came to Denver in 1891, fathered what was probably the first municipal art commission in America, established by charter in 1904. As its first undertaking it planned the Civic Center, which is today embellished with two bronzes—The Broncho Buster and On the Warpath—by Alexander Phimister Proctor, widely known for his animal figures.

Among prominent contemporary Colorado mural painters is Frank Mechau, three times winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, formerly associated with the Fine Arts Center at Colorado Springs, now director of the School of Art, Columbia University. Mechau is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and by murals in the post offices at Colorado Springs, Glenwood Springs, and Washington, D. C., and by a painting, Horses at Morning, in the Denver Public Library. The works of another muralist, Allen Tupper True, breathe a refreshingly authentic western atmosphere. Born in Colorado Springs, True studied under Howard Pyle and Frank Brangwyn, and has murals in many Denver buildings and in the Missouri State Capitol. Perhaps the most interesting and germinal of his later work has been his use of Indian motifs in color and decorative designs for large industrial plants; his treatment of the 11-story hydroelectric plant at Boulder Dam has been highly praised and widely discussed, and his experiment is to be repeated at the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest engineering project of history.

Dean Babcock, of Denver and Estes Park, has achieved recognition for his mountain landscapes and magazine illustrations. George Elbert Burr, nationally known for his etchings and pastels of mountains and deserts, is represented in the permanent collections of museums throughout the country. Colorado has promising young sculptors in Marvin Martin and Gladys Caldwell Fisher.

The Fine Arts departments of the universities have done much to encourage and train young Coloradoans working in the graphic and plastic arts, but the bulk of their work has been performed on the Colorado unit of the Federal art program. The work of this group reflects the current trend among Western artists toward the use of primitive indigenous art forms; both the painting and sculpture of the younger school is strongly influenced by the highly stylized manner of the Indian, particularly that of the modern Pueblo Indians. Of the mural painters in this group, Pascal Quackenbush has decorative panels in St. Martin's Chapel, St. John's Episcopal Church, Denver, and at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The State unit of the Index of American Design has contributed many fine water-color reproductions of the New Mexican santos and bultos in the fine Anne Evans collection.

Along a parallel line is the excellent work done by the Adult Education unit of the WPA in reviving the rapidly dying handicrafts— weaving, embroidery, wood carving, and leather work—of the Spanish-American people in the southern part of the State. Once highly developed, these crafts have been almost forgotten among them; their revival will add body and color to the cultural pattern of the State.