The Bureau of Reclamation commissioned forty American artists to visit and create works inspired by sites of Reclamation in the American West from the late 1960s' to early 1970s'. As the project came to a close there was an exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 1972, The American Artist and Water Reclamation. Over fifty years after the exhibition, Reclamation has selected the same pieces that were once on display in Washington D.C. to be showcased as a retrospective of the first exhibition from that commission. The works that were originally displayed contained striking perspectives from varying Reclamation sites, such as Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, the Lower Colorado River of Arizona, and Shasta Dam in California.

  • An Excerpt from the Introduction of the Original Exhibition

    Douglas MacAgy, 1971

     "As once there was Restoration drama, this show might be called a Reclamation play. Much as the former paid tribute to a seasoned past in a still older England, the current production refers to a pioneer background in America that has never lost its wonder. That antecedent was a wilder West than the one to be seen today, but even then expeditions sponsored by the Government were also commissioning artists to picture their regional records. Here the old rewarding practive is brought up to date. This return of more or less city-bred painters to the legendary mise en scene is by no means a masquerade in cowboy costime. It brings a spirit of that heritage to the windbreaker present. In doing so it revives the earlier histrionic relationship between artists and the natural setting. Favored elements of the Nation's lengthening tradition are revitalized. Again the action takes place in a focus of widespread social concern.

     

     Painters of the Old West trekked along as the country was being penetrated to the brink of development. They sketched colorful episodes on the trails, drafted impressions of the land's layout, and in their studios later they worked up popular pictures of the stunning new sights from jottings put down on the spot. Their timely share in thrills about prospects of the West were entirely in tune with official efforts to promote the emigration and settlement which eventually would leaf to the phase explored here."

  • Big Thompson, Four Drawings

    Ethel Edwards