Private Collection, 1915 (acquired directly from the artist)
By descent in the family to the present owner

Scribners Magazine, July 1916, illustrated as a frontispiece

Excellent condition, unlined; under UV: a couple of very minor retouches along left edge.
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The distilled simplicity and powerful imagery of William Robinson Leigh's large-scale compositions have earned him recognition and acclaim and made him one of the most popular western artists of the early twentieth century. Born on a farm in West Virginia in 1866, Leigh's talents as an artist were quickly recognized and embraced. Leigh spent three years at the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts in Baltimore, where he excelled as a young student. In 1883, Leigh was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. After twelve years in Europe, Leigh emerged a skilled draughtsman.  He returned to America and settled in New York, despite his strong urge to see the vast expanses of the Western United States. Struggling financially, Leigh took work as an illustrator for Scribner's and later Collier's Weekly Magazine, but generally, Leigh consider🎃ed his🐠 life in New York and work as an illustrator insufferable.

In 1906, at the age of forty, Leigh was finally able to fulfill his dream of visiting the West. Unable to afford a train ticket, he brokered a deal with the Santa Fe Railroad, exchanging a painting of the Grand Canyon, which they would use to promote tourism, for transportation to Laguna, New Mexico. Leigh wrote, "In America there was a vast field of untouched material – pictorial opportunities unsurpassed and brand new – as wonderful as any the world has ever seen!" (William Leigh, "My America," Arizona Highway, February 1948, p. 16). Leigh went on to m𝄹ake more than twenty-five trips out West, all the while harvesting material for his paintings. He spent a great deal of his time with the Hopi Indians in the Canyon de Chelly, which came to be known as Hopi Canyon. As part of the Grand Canyon, Hopi Canyon was named after the Hopi Indians who lived on the mesas ove🍸rlooking the desert floor.

In The Great Spirit, a solitary Hopi Indian perched on the edge of a rocky outcrop and silhouetted against a vivid backdrop of sky and clouds, looks out over the desert. With his chin resting upon the palm of his hand, the young man seems at one with nature. The painting is infused with vivid colors, ranging from blues that permeate the sky to purples and pinks that cover the distant desert and warm yellows left by the setting sun. The Great Spirit exemplifies Leigh's ability to capture the awe inspiring beauty and vastness of the West, as well as the native people who inf🎃luenced his experiences.

While the critics and fellow artists were slow to accept Leigh, some calling his work mere illustration, he continued to capture the unique charm and unrivaled glamour conveyed by the Southwest and its people. Prior to his passing in 1955 Leigh ultimately saw "his strongly representational style of painting vindicated" and experienced at last the acclaim that he had so longed for (D. D. Cummins, William Robinson Leigh: Western Artists, Norman, Oklahoma, 1980).