Gerard Curtis Delano

Born in Marion, Massachusetts, Gerard Curtis Delano trained at the Art Students League and the Grand Central School of Art in New York City before beginning his career as an illustrator. He traveled to Colorado in 1919 to work as a cowboy and gain firsthand experience to use in his artwork. He established a homestead near the Arapahoe National Forest in 1920 and then headed back to New York in 1923, where his western illustrations appeared regularly in national magazines like Cosmopolitan and Collier’s. Delano remained in New York until the Great Depression forced him to move back to Colorado. Fortunately, in 1936 he signed a two-year contract to provide weekly illustrations for The Story of the West, a series that chronicled the history of the West in Western Story magazine. Soon after, he gave up illustration and turned to painting full time. Visiting the Navajo Reservation in Arizona for the first time in 1943, he was immediately struck by the beauty of the landscape and the people. The Navajo culture became a major focus in his work for the rest of his career.