Superstition Mountain - Apache Trail - Arizona- Night (no. 2)

George Elbert Burr

Superstition Mountain, Apache Trail, Arizona, Night (no. 2) is a masterpiece of aquatint and drypoint. Burr created the image by working from light to dark and the dramatic effect reads more like a mezzotint. The dark night has softened the details of the desert while moonlit clouds linger above the Superstition Mountains seemingly illuminating the crags, cliffs, and cacti. An impression is illustration on page 155 in George Elbert Burr 1859-1939: Catalogue Raisonné by Louise Combes Seeber.

The Apache Trail is a scenic route between Apache Junction and Theodore Roosevelt Lake through the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. It was the route used for centuries by the Apache and became a stagecoach trail across the Sonoran Desert. The desert floor is sculpted with mature saguaros and chollas and the craggy mountains offer dramatic cliffs and vistas.

Burr moved to Denver, Colorado in 1906 for health reasons. He spent the next 18 years there creating a body of intaglio prints that focused on the desert and mountain landscapes of the southwest. Burr was in the unique position of self-promoting his work and in January 1930 wrote to R. P. Tolman, assistant curator at the Smithsonian Institution: "It's lots of fun to be a 'poor artist.' Nearly fifty years I've been, except for health limitations, supremely happy in my work, and am constantly surprised in the number of people that also seem to get pleasure out of my labor. It seems so odd, that without effort, I've always sold more than Mrs. Burr and I have needed for all our fourteen years of travel and other so-called luxuries."

Again for health reasons, the Burrs had to leave the winter chill of Denver and purchased a home in Phoenix, Arizona in 1927 where he died in 1939.