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#LEP-1 - "Andy of Tonopah", 1961 - by Ina Pruitt of Eugene, Oregon - Lithographed print, Signed, remarked and numbered in India Ink - $195.00 This print depicts a scene from the nearly bygone Old West. All over the western United States, old prospectors and others who lived the outdoor life in the early 1900's, were trying to live out their lives in towns close to their old haunts. Andy was just such a character, living in Tonopah, Nevada, seat of Nye County. He is depicted here with the sensitivity and insight that can only come from one who has lived just as hard a life. Ina Pruitt, 1919 - 1996, was just such a person. Born in a shack on the Western frontier, she struggled against the odds to educate herself. She married for love and raised 4 children. Much of her life, the summer and fall for nearly 40 years, was spent on Steens Mountain in Southeastern Oregon. She only took up painting after her child-rearing days were completed. This portrait of Andy is somewhat of a departure from her normal genre, which was landscapes. She described her love of the outdoors this way "My goal is to capture... the ocean with its many moods, the mountain stillness, the timbered hills and valleys, the high sagebrush deserts and the little known spots that the average traveler misses -- scenic jewels tucked away in a mountain gorge or high on a snowy slope." She has captured Andy with the same sensitivity and warmth that she lavished on her landscapes. Ina lived with grace and imparted beauty to all who knew her,
as she will to all who see her paintings for generations to come.
She completed more than 310 major oil paintings. Because her
work was shown only in the Northwest, and seldom outside Oregon,
she is still an undiscovered artist. |