El Tovar (Hotel; Grand Canyon)
[New York: W.J. Black,] 1906. Chromolithograph (sheet 8" x 17", frame 12 1/4" x 20 7/8"). Faint stain to the lower-left corner. Else fine (not examined out of frame) in an old oak frame with a brass title-plaque.
Louis Benton Akin (1868-1912) was born in Oregon but trained in New York before settling in Arizona, whose climate beguiled and healed him. The present item is perhaps Akin's most famous: the El Tovar hotel, designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey, which had opened the year before and still operates today. Along the path at left are Hopi figures approaching the hotel.
The Grand Canyon, viewed here from the South Rim, recedes into the distance, dissolving into atmospheric perspective. The print is also found in a larger format (about quadruple the size) but the present issue is, perhaps, more intimate and hushed as befits Akin's own attitude to the healing Southwest.
Item #JLR0450a
Price: $2,800