Buchman Mesa - Otowi

In 1936, Cady Wells purchased property in Jacona, New Mexico in the Pojoaque Valley. He explored his new locale over the next few years, and Buchman Mesa was a relatively short drive. This watercolor with its reductive approach to form, its economy of line, and limited palette suggests an almost anthropomorphic interpretation of landscape. In this regard, Wells may have taken a cue from Marsden Hartley, whose New Mexico Recollections suggested a landscape animate with unseen, telluric forces.