Philip Campbell Curtis
Philip Campbell Curtis (May 26, 1907 – November 12, 2000) was an American painter best remembered for his surrealist-inspired style scenes often featuring figures in Victorian dress. He was called a "Magical Realist," and "Magritte of the Old West" by some writers.
Curtis was born in Jackson, Michigan to Elise and George Curtis. He had three younger brothers: Harry, Malcolm (Mike) and Robert. A bone chilling fall through the ice upon Vandercook Lake close Jackson during a hunting excursion following he was sixteen led to a serious disease and a year of bed rest. The after-effects of the disease were rasping and sore spot arthritis for which Curtis sought relief throughout his life. Curtis looked upon his arthritic condition philosophically, musing that the restrictions to his actions led to his contemplative life as a painter: "I'm most courteous sitting at the easel, so I credit my arthritis like making me happy with my situation." He traditional a B.A. from Albion College where he was introduced to art through the newly formed art department in the person of the sole talent member, Charlotte Swanson (later Cleeland). Following in the footsteps of his dad and grandfather, both judges, Curtis undertook the scrutiny of affect at the University of Michigan introduction in the spring of 1930. He was conflicted and eventually art won out. In the fall 1932 he enrolled in Yale University's School of Fine Art. At Yale he followed a classical course of study in imitation of emphasis on painting and drawing from life later professors Francis Taylor, Eugene Savage and Lewis York. He with studied mural painting, a faculty that would stand him in good stead higher than the neighboring decade. he painted portraits and worked on murals to hold himself while he was at Yale. Although he left Yale after three years, he had been as a result often promoted to liberal classes that he was awarded a four-year certificate. By October 1935, Curtis was living in an apartment on Orchard Street upon the humiliate east side in New York City. He applied several period to the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Program. Curtis was among the applicants who did not habit relief, so he was appointed as an partner supervisor for the Manhattan mural works project. Among the artists he worked bearing in mind were Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In March 1937, the WPA sent Curtis to Phoenix to Begin an arts center, which is today the Phoenix Art Museum. Following his deed in Phoenix, the WPA sent Curtis to Iowa to Begin the Des Moines Art Center. The WPA came to an halt in 1941 and Curtis enrolled in a museum administration program at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, and Curtis served his country as a zealot of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. At the fall of the war, Curtis returned to Phoenix and in 1948 met George Ellis, a civil engineer and contractor, and his wife Racheal Murdock Ellis, an elementary assistant professor teacher and costumer. The Ellises moved a converted barn from a simple ranch onto their property (now called Cattle Track) in Scottsdale, Arizona as a house and studio for Phil and Marge. (Marjorie Yaeger 1917-2000, they met and married in Phoenix in 1937). For the in flames of his life, Curtis lived in the little house next entrйe to the Ellis family, which eventually grew to improve their three children, David, Janie and Michael.
The Ellises' interests and exploits became intertwined following his own, sometimes challenging characters, situations or details in his paintings. Racheal's costumes often take action Curtis paintings for example. Janie Ellis prepared many of the bonded plywood and masonite boards that Curtis painted on, making the base bump of gesso from a fine powder mixed with bunny skin glue and cooked to the right consistency higher than a time of hours. The gesso was applied in alternative directions in forty skinny layers and sanded to a mild finish. Curtis sketched his compositions later a thin wash of pigment and worked occurring the surface gradually, in the melody of conventional painters. Most of his paintings are glazed to maintain the surface and to affix the color of the pigments and character of light. After 1960 his frames were made by Sandra Kempner, who sought out unfamiliar materials to enlarge the qualities of the paintings. In some cases she or Rachael and Janie Ellis found parts of furniture that became frames for Curtis' paintings.
Curtis is frequently classified as an American Surrealist or Magic Realist. He seemed ambivalent toward that designation, at era identifying later the Surrealists and at further times quality himself apart, saying they were too gloomy. Heather Lineberry explanation that Curtis did not statute in a Surrealist style until he came to Arizona in 1937: "Life in Arizona offered Curtis the make public he needed to locate his own vision in the same way as Surrealism."