AW760: Ferdinand Bergdorff "Betatakin 1924" Navajo Cliff Dwellings Oil on Canvas

Ferdinand Bergdorff (Born 1881 Cleveland, Ohio; Died 1975 Pebble Beach California). Titled: "Betatakin 1924" Oil on Canvas (Relined). The painting is a plain air painting of the Betatakin Cliff Dwelling Ruins in Navajo National Monument, Arizona. 

Ferdinand Burgdorff studied at the Cleveland School of Art and in Paris with Rene Menard and Florence Este.  In 1907, he moved to the western United States with the intention of becoming a desert landscape painter.  He lived in box cars with railroad builders on the stretch of line between Yuma and Calexico and traveling by wagon or horseback, accompanied surveyors on many trips into the desert. He also worked for a period in Santa Fe, New Mexico and near Albuquerque in the region known as the Sandia.  Bergdorff also engaged in  commissions for the Santa Fe Railway that took him to many remote areas in northern Arizona during the 1920s. It was during this time that Bergdorff produced this painting. Bergdorff later moved to California where  he was perhaps best known as a member of the Carmel Colony as well as an illustrator for Sunset Magazine.

Dimensions: Sight: 14" x 18"; Frame: 20 1/2" x 24 1/2"