New Mexico Landscape - Valley and Mesas

The bright, exuberant watercolors of Cady Wells's early career as an artist yielded to a more somber approach by the end of the 1930s. His ongoing struggle with depression and struggle to find acceptance as a gay man in the United States led to dark and foreboding paintings. The meager light of these landscapes suggests nocturnes and especially the paintings of Albert Pinkham Ryder and Ralph Albert Blakelock, both of whom were seen as significant influence on the development of modern painting by this time.