Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde
Artist
Pansy Stockton
(American, 1895 - 1972)
Datec. 1940
Mediumorganic collage
Dimensions17 x 23 1/4 inches (43.2 x 59.1 cm)
Frame: 23 5/8 × 30 × 2 7/8 inches (60 × 76.2 × 7.3 cm)
Frame: 23 5/8 × 30 × 2 7/8 inches (60 × 76.2 × 7.3 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Nelda C. Stark, 1999
Object number2012.3.1
ClassificationsCollages
DescriptionDepicts Spruce Tree House, cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde. New Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Cliff dwellings date to between 1211 and 1278 A.D. Dwellings of ancestors of Puebloan peoples.Label TextStockton called her works of art “sun paintings.” For these works, she did not use traditional oil paints or watercolors. Instead, she made collages from organic materials, such as leaves, bark, moss, and other natural items. She said that the sun created the colors of her materials. She felt that when she completed her works, they looked like paintings. She used fourteen different plants to depict Spruce Tree House, a dwelling at Mesa Verde, Colorado. The cliff houses were the homes of ancestors of Pueblo peoples of the Southwest. Spruce Tree House dates between about 1211 and 1278 CE.
ProvenancePansy Stockton, Santa Fe, New Mexico; purchased August 10, 1956 by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; by inheritance September 2, 1965 to his wife Nelda C. Stark [1909-1999]; bequeathed December 13, 1999 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned July 31, 2012 to the Stark Museum of Art
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