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Gallery Feature: DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 17:52

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  At the base of the Santa Catalina Foothills lays one of Ted DeGrazia's most impressive works of art, his gallery.

 

The DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun spans across 10 acres and includes his home, a large main gallery, little gallery and small adobe mission home to some of the native Arizonan artist's Southwestern-influenced pieces of art. From sculpture and ceramic masterpieces to oil paintings, stained glass and even jewelry, DeGrazia's works are rotated throughout the main gallery regularly, giving some of his 15,000 remaining pieces a chance to be admired.

After burning around 100 of his own paintings in the Superstition Mountains as a protest against inheritance taxes, DeGrazia decided to create the DeGrazia Foundation non-profit organization so he could give to the charities of his choosing while allowing his heirs half of his earnings when he died, according to the executive director of the DeGrazia Foundation, Lance Laber.

 

DeGrazia thought his work needed to feel at home and comfortable while being displayed, thus explaining his detailed craftsmanship, said Laber.

According to Laber, DeGrazia constructed both galleries and the mission to mainly use natural lighting to display his works, hand painted all of the walls and beams along the ceiling, inlaid turquoise stones over archways and in the cholla cactus floors in the main gallery as well. 


Before DeGrazia had the fame and funds to build his large main gallery, he first built the little gallery to house his work. After he died in 1982, the little gallery has been home to hundreds of guest artists during the winter months, allowing them to use the space for two weeks free of charge, Laber said.

Hand-built with the help of some of his friends, the small mission has housed many wedding kisses, mourning tears, trinkets and prayer candle offerings throughout the years. In addition to the soft pastel colored walls covered with angels and natives carrying flowers, the altar is also framed in strands of small Christmas lights to add to the sparkling starlight that floods through the open ceiling at night, per Mrs. DeGrazia's request.

With a large number of his works inspired by the Yaqui, Papago, Tohono O'odham and Navajo tribes, the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun exhibits some of Arizona's true origins in culture through visual expression.


6300 N. Swan Road, Tucson, Ariz. 85718 | 520.299.9191

Written by Chelsea Meintel You are reading Gallery Feature: DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun articles

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