Carl Redin (Swedish-American, 1892-1944), Superstition Mountain

Oil on canvas, signed at lower right, inscribed en verso, presented in the likely original period giltwood frame.

Stretcher size 30 x 38 in.; Frame dimensions 35 x 43 in.

Carl Redin became known for his lively and colorful landscapes of the American West. Born near Stockholm, Sweden, he studied art there before immigrating to the United States in 1913. He briefly lived in Chicago where he worked as a varnisher and enamelist for a building contractor and fell ill with tuberculosis. In 1916, he relocated to New Mexico, seeking a dryer climate to aid his illness.

He painted in Albuquerque, El Paso, and Santa Fe, as well as in Arizona and Southern California. It was in Arizona where he captured this work, featuring a range of mountains located to the east of Phoenix. In 1929, Redin taught at the University of New Mexico and opened a studio in Lubbock, Texas where he taught a summer session at Texas Technological College. By the late 1930s, he moved to the Palomar Mountains in California. He received national recognition for his work and died in Los Gatos in 1944.

Redin exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs, and the Macbeth Gallery in New York City.

Three-inch tear to upper left corner, small puncture, age cracking, scattered areas of flaking, and instability to paint, area of retouching at the center.