About the work

This work was created post-1940, when Harris started to take frequent trips to the desert around Palm Springs. The title of the work likely refers to Vista Point in the Santa Rosa Mountains, southwest of Palm Desert.

This period of Sam’s work is notable for the influence of James Swinnerton. His subjects included bright stretches of sand with occasional smoke trees. His choice of colors are simple and bold, and include frequent use of reds, yellows and greens; compositions are simplified and direct.

The painting and frame are in exceptionally fine condition. The reverse bears a gallery label from Collector’s Gallery at Carmel by the Sea. Housed in a gilt hand-carved Arts & Crafts style frame.

About the artist…

“With his strong compositions and subtle colors, Sam Hyde Harris captured a time and a feeling long past in a motorized and suburbanized Southern California. The past lives on in the eloquence of his paintings.” - Article on the death of Sam Hyde Harris, San Gabriel Sun, 1977

Born in England, Harris (1889-1977) became a California impressionist landscape painter known for his views of Chavez Ravine on the edge of Los Angeles, harbor views, and desert landscapes. Although his full-time vocation was always to be commercial art, his passion for easel painting started early and continued during his entire career.

During the 1920's Harris studied under Hanson Puthuff. The two became close friends and partners on painting trips into the California and Arizona countryside. During the 1920's and 30's, Harris met and painted with several other of notable California's artists, including Edgar Payne and Jean Mannheim.

A significant milestone occurred in the 1940’s, when Sam became acquainted with James Swinnerton, who had been painting desert landscapes since the 1920s. Swinnerton introduced Harris to the desert and his style of landscape painting. An influential friendship, an absorption with the desert, and a new direction in Harris's work followed—a distinctive style of desert landscapes.

Harris was the recipient of more than one hundred awards and purchase prizes bestowed by colleges, community organizations and leading art associations, including the California Art Club, Laguna Beach Art Association, Los Angeles Art League, Painters and Sculptors Club, Artists of the Southwest, Valley Art Association and the San Gabriel Festival of Arts.

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