The art world now has a significant new and inspiring museum dedicated to what many believe was one of the last century's most significant artists: Maynard Dixon. His ability to capture the land and its inhabitants nonjudgmentally and honestly has left an indelible legacy on the Western art world. And it is all right here in Tucson!
“The Museum has tried to capture the essence of Dixon, the artist as well as the individual, through not only his artwork but through his letters and poetry,” said Dr. Mark Sublette, owner of the museum. It is the only museum dedicated to the lifework of Dixon. Artwork, including paintings, drawings, and original Dixon ephemera, can be seen at the Museum.
Mark and Kathleen Sublette have amassed the most extensive collection of drawings, sketches, oil paintings, hand-written poems, letters, and more related to the legendary Western artist (1875-1946). Also, an impressive world-class collection of Native American jewelry, pottery, baskets, kachinas, weavings, artifacts, and other crafts are featured in the new museum. The new space additionally contains a beautiful gallery featuring rotating exhibits of contemporary Western Art that are available for purchase. The Maynard Dixon Museum has long been part of Mark Sublette’s Medicine Man Gallery. It now has a dedicated space just around the corner for the expanded collection.
Dr. Sublette said Dixon’s original easel resides in the museum. Many artists have made the pilgrimage to see its copious drips of blue paint. With its Pollock-like surface, the easel succinctly captures a fifty-year time frame of Dixon’s innate color sensibilities.
His works link the historic West with the Modern Industrial Age by combining cubism, color field, abstraction, and traditional landscape elements in one canvas.
The Maynard Dixon and Native American Art Museum is proud to have an absolute Maynard Dixon masterpiece on loan until August 2025: Wild Horses of Nevada, 1927. This large 44x50 oil on canvas painting depicts a bird’s eye view of a team of wild horses painted in an array of blues, reds, and browns, cutting across the bottom third of the canvas. The mesa at the top of the composition shows Dixon’s cubist approach to depicting the Western landscape. The painting won a silver medal at the 1928 Pacific Southwest Exposition in Long Beach and was exhibited extensively throughout the United States in the following years. It has been included in most major exhibitions of Dixon’s work recently, including the Nevada Museum of Art and the Scottsdale Museum of the West.
Born on a ranch near Fresno, California, in the San Joaquin Valley on January 24, 1875, Dixon (originally named Henry St. John Dixon, which later changed to Lafayette Maynard Dixon on September 8, 1875) became a noted illustrator, landscape, and mural painter of the early 20th-century American West, especially the desert, Indians, early settlers, and cowboys.
Dixon’s mentor, Charles Lummis, encouraged Dixon early in his painting career to leave California and “travel East to see the real West.” Dixon did just that, traveling the many roads that crisscrossed the West: Montana, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. These trips lasted weeks to even months and inspired Dixon to create. He was forever drawn to the vistas and people inhabiting these remote western lands.
When Dixon first visited Arizona at the turn of the 20th century, it was a wild, open territory inhabited primarily by Hispanics and Native Americans. In 1902, he visited Lorenzo Hubbell’s Ganado trading post in northern Arizona and came away with wonderful sketches he would use as inspiration for many years. "Viewing these works, one can imagine the awe Maynard Dixon felt in the raw beauty of the landscape and its inhabitants," Dr. Sublette said. He would return to Arizona many times, making Tucson his final home.
Highlights of the Native American art displays at the museum include masterpiece pots by the greatest Puebloan family of potters - Maria and Julian Martinez - their son Popovi Da, and their grandson, Tony Da. The collection houses Tony Da’s first art pottery, which he made as a teenager and exquisite pots made at the top of his creative prowess. There is an extensive collection of Navajo and Zuni jewelry and a unique collection of Hawaiian artifacts.
The new museum is at 6866 E Sunrise Drive, Suite 150, on the southwest corner of Sunrise Drive and Kolb Road.
The Maynard Dixon and Native American Art Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $6 for students, and children and military with ID are free. There is also an annual membership for $40.
Please contact Dan Cheek, museum director, at dancheek@medicinemangallery.com for more information about the new venue and upcoming events.
"Many art collectors consider Maynard Dixon to be the premier artist of the West."