Lodore Canyon
Artist
Merrill Mahaffey
Year1994
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions60 x 78 in. (152.4 x 198.1 cm)
Credits
Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location
Byron White U.S. Courthouse
Denver, CO
"Lodore Canyon" depicts a western landscape in which the Green River flows between the steep walls of Diamond Mountain in Dinosaur National Monument. From the top of Diamond Mountain one can peer off a 3,000-foot precipice to the Green River in its brief flow through northwest Colorado into Utah. The painting captures the character of this river and the expansive metamorphic red walls, which typify the canyon lands region. This remote area is home to ranching pioneers, stories of wild bunch hideouts and a nineteenth-century mining hoax. Since the original exploration of Lodore Canyon by the John Wesley Powell expedition of 1868, whitewater adventurers have considered this canyon a source of fearsome rapids and spectacular views.