EDITOR'S LETTER

Old black-and-whites of Saguaro National Monument. That was the plan for our portfolio. But the best-laid plans of mice and men and magazine stories often go awry. Not even Lisa Altomare, our art director, could find the right mix of images. That's rare. Like a kid on the beach with a metal detector, she usually digs up whatever we need. Not this time, though. She did, however, find David Swing.

His name was familiar — I'd seen something on him in one of our early issues — but I didn't know much about the man who's been described as the “dean of Southwest artists.” I've learned a lot in the past few weeks.

David Carrick Swing was born in Cincinnati and studied art under Thomas Corwin Lindsay, a renowned landscape painter in the Queen City. He studied music, too, with private tutors who helped fine-tune his prodigious talent. That's what led him to Los Angeles, where he played violin, cello and trumpet in several orchestras. He also opened a landscape and interior design firm in downtown LA, and an art studio in Pasadena. He stayed in Southern California for many years, and then, in 1917, he moved to the Sonoran Desert to play stringed instruments with the Phoenix Symphony.

Like so many other transplants, he fell in love with the Arizona landscape and started painting it. Later, when the Great Depression was at its worst, he looked to the government for work. It paid off. In 1935, he was hired by the Federal Art Project, the visual arts arm of the Works Progress Administration, to paint four murals at the tuberculosis sanatorium in Papago Park, and a series of panels for the new library at Phoenix Junior College, where he was on the faculty as an art instructor. Around the same time, he was commissioned by the WPA to create — with artist Florence Blakeslee — the 23 bas-relief terra cotta medallions that ring the grandstand at the Arizona State Fairgrounds.

His work was everywhere, wrote Peter Bermingham, the author of New Deal in the Southwest: Arizona and New Mexico. “For sheer acreage of painted canvas, no other Arizona artist in the thirties could rival David Swing.” Nevertheless, David Swing is not a household name. Not even Bruce Aiken, our modern-day dean of Southwest artists, was familiar. “I've not heard of him specifically,” he told me, “but the New Deal art program was one of the best things we've done in America to leave an artistic and aesthetic legacy in our public spaces. As you know, art is what we save, treasure and honor as a society. Art enhances our lives and uplifts so many people, just by seeing it. By the way, that program literally saved many artists during the Great Depression.” The Depression ended in 1939. That's when Mr. Swing launched his most ambitious project. He'd been commissionedby the Arizona Legislature to paint a series of murals for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, which opened on February 18 of that year.

“It has been our good fortune to see some of the murals that artist David Swing is getting ready for the Arizona exhibit at the San Francisco World's Fair,” Editor Raymond Carlson wrote in our March 1939 issue. “There will be fourteen murals depicting a scenic wonder from each of Arizona's counties. The murals are five feet by ten feet, and are being beautifully and artistically done as befits this glorious state and as bespeaks the genius of one of the state's most noted artists.” Although it was billed as a “world's fair,” technically, it wasn't, because its planners never got around to requesting official status from the Bureau International des Expositions, the French organization that regulates world's fairs. But in every other way, it was. Treasure Island, a man-made landmass in the middle of San Francisco Bay, was built exclusively for the expo. And so were dozens of spectacular Art Deco buildings dedicated to various themes. One of them was the Hall of Western States.

“The friendly invitation, 'Howdy, pardners, welcome to Arizona,' is extended to visitors who enter Arizona's exhibit in the Hall of Western States,” Stephen Shadegg wrote in our June 1939 issue. “In the foyer of the building, fourteen scenic murals, painted especially for the exposition by David Swing, defy the limits of space. All the murals are framed in the ribs of the saguaro cactus, and the unusual wood arouses considerable comment — its soft satiny finish forms an effective setting for the scenic paintings.” In all, 17 million people passed through the turnstiles at the expo, many of whom, presumably, saw the artwork of Mr. Swing, along with murals by Maynard Dixon and Diego Rivera, and a photo exhibit by Ansel Adams.

Back in Phoenix, the dean continued adding to the acreage of his painted canvas, which includes murals at Radio City Music Hall and the home of filmmaker Thomas Ince, the “father of the Western.” The only thing that slowed him down was disaster.

In November 1941, the attic, roof and two rear rooms in his home on Adams Street were destroyed by a fire. According to George Simpson, the deputy fire chief, the blaze was caused by the spontaneous ignition of “several oily garments and rags” in a supply room. Fortunately, the artist was able to save most of his paintings before the house went up in flames. But, sadly, the end was near. On June 1, 1945, Mr. Swing died in his Phoenix home after a long illness.

Eighty years later, he makes a return to the pages of Arizona Highways. Pages that were supposed to be filled with old black-and-whites of Saguaro National Monument. The best-laid plans ... sometimes they go awry. And sometimes, that's OK. As long as you have a good metal detector on hand.