24 T ony Foster’s watercolor paintings are often described as visual diaries for good reason. Included in most of his pictures are written descriptions, excerpted from actual diaries he pens nightly while on his painting journeys. Diary and journey, along with the term wilderness, are basically ubiquitous when considering Foster’s art of the past four decades. In fact, over half of his exhibitions and publications contain the word “diaries” and/or “journey.” Both terms refer to the artist’s working practice and to his ultimate goal of slowing the view- er’s experience to gain a true vicarious reaction to each individual location depicted, hopefully encour- aging a sense of sound and smell along with appearance. For centuries, people all over the world have kept diaries or journals for all kinds of purposes. There are recorded diaries from China dating from 2,000 years ago. There was a huge escalation of journals and diaries during the European Age of Enlightenment centered in the 18th century. This was certainly true for visual artists working during that era. The most recognized artist to depend heavily on his own writ- ings for memory, research, and problem-solving was Leonardo da Vinci around the turn of the 16th century. Many historians have often valued the scientific and engineering ideas found in da Vinci’s writings above his artistic output as one of the world’s greatest painters. Art historians naturally depend on primary documentation when studying artists’ completed works. Their taped interviews, letters, notes, journals, and diaries are invaluable when one strives to under- stand what an artist was thinking at a particular time, or in relation to a specific work, especially when the artist is no longer available for interview. Rarely have artists’ diaries or journals been thought of as part of the artistic production process. Tony Foster’s water- colors demand an examination such as this because of his included extractions from his daily journey diaries, his own stated value of same seen in exhibition and publication titles, and how the act of writing contrib- utes to his own inspiration in a body of work for exhi- bition, such as Tony Foster: Watercolour Diaries from the Green River. To further understand the artist’s process, a comparison to three other artists who traveled the Green River over a range of 80 years (1871–1951) can be helpful. Their purposes varied, their ages varied, their training varied, their mediums varied, and even their end results varied. But by examining both works of art and diaries of Frederick S. Dellenbaugh (1853–1935), Ellsworth and Emery Kolb (1876–1960 and 1881–1976, respectively), and Philip Hyde (1921–2006), we gain a greater appreciation of how important Tony Foster’s art is to value and celebrate wilderness in today’s urbanized world. Seventeen-year-old Frederick Dellenbaugh, the son of Samuel Dellenbaugh, a Buffalo, New York, physician, and his wife, Elizabeth, boarded a train alone to travel to Chicago for an interview on April 17, 1871, with John Wesley Powell, who two years earlier had thrilled much of America with his expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers through the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Fred was quite experienced for a young man, having boated in the rough waters of the Niagara River. A mutual family friend had set up Green River Journeys FOUR ARTISTS’ DIARIES James K. Ballinger ART HISTORIAN AND DIRECTOR EMERITUS, PHOENIX ART MUSEUM
