What makes a masterpiece?
That depends on who is looking, of course, though in the case of “Denver: The City and Its Art 1870-1970,” the beholder is Elizabeth Schlosser, who knows Colorado, and its art and architecture, better than most people. As an author, historian, appraiser and advocate, she has been observing and preserving civic treasures here for decades.
Still, it is bold to publish a book declaring what are, as the book’s subtitle says, the 100 “pubic masterpieces” from the city’s early-ish years, before the creation of public art became the common social practice it is today.
This book acknowledges as much. In her brief introduction, Schlosser notes that everyone has their own ideas when it comes to the quality of sculpture, painting, building design and more. It goes beyond personal taste, into the political lens through which we tend to view art — and everything else nowadays. Every critical proclamation about cultural value is focused through a lens of a history that is continuously rewritten and reevaluated.
Still, this book, which is low on text and high on photographs, takes a stand, and in that way it is a very important publication. With this slim tome, Schlosser has started a conversation that is intriguing and valuable. Anyone with an affinity for the city is likely to consume it with passion, and have their own opinions.
This author has her standards, and one of them is beauty, which seems arbitrary until you start looking at the images, many by photographer Caroline Miller, and filter Schlosser’s decisions through a quote she puts near the beginning by Patrick Brinkley, who defines beauty as something “silent, direct, and concrete, resisting translation even into thought.”
That definition, ethereal and personally empowering, inspires Schlosser through this task, as she makes her picks in chapters labeled “Early Days,” “The Civic Center,” “Denver Modernism” and “Monumental Offerings” — all of which give her a lot of amazing objects and places to single out.
The exercise starts with a lithograph, circa 1859, by Collier and Cleaveland, depicting Indigenous settlements — a sprawling campground of tipis set up at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek.
It ends with Herbert Bayer’s 1969 “Articulated Wall,” the twisting stack of concrete rectangles that has become a landmark in the neighborhood along South Broadway.
In between there are picks, both obvious and obscure, with many familiar artworks and architecture recognized: the Colorado State Capitol, the murals inside the Brown Palace Hotel, the statues in City Park, the paintings housed in the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Public Library.
The book makes its arguments for greatness with contextual photos that show where the pieces fit into the urban geography, but also with clear detail shots that unveil where the real magic often exists in these works. So, instead of presenting yet another photo of the Denver City and County Building as a silhouette on the skyline, this book gives us Miller’s close-up picture of the golden eagle — with its detailed wings and leg feathers — that sits atop it. The bird was cast in bronze by artist Joseph Nicolosi in 1932.
Another example: Miller’s photo of the statue of the sitting female figure titled “Grief” at Fairmount Cemetery. But we also get a second, smaller shot that focuses on the figure’s graceful hands with their precise fingernails. There are numerous images like this in the book, and they beg Denverites to take second looks at many of the objects that surround them.
By winnowing down the thousands of pieces of available art in Denver, Schlosser calls out many heroes of the public art profession here over time. There is Charles Partridge Adams, who lived from 1858 to 1942, and practically defined Western landscape painting from a regional perspective. The book shows his many views of the Spanish Peaks and Estes Park.
There is Alexander Phimster Proctor, whose bronze statues in Civic Center are local icons. The book calls out his “Broncho Buster,” from 1920, and “On the War Trail,” from 1922. Both might be considered problematic in the way they stereotype the “cowboy-and-Indian” era, but the work, capturing both detailed faces and a wild sense of movement, are captivating.
Other art heroes: Gladys Caldwell Fisher, whose carved limestone rams, each weighing six tons and standing 6 feet high, guard the entrance of the U.S. Courthouse downtown; Frank Mechau, who contributed murals to buildings of the Denver Public Library and the U.S. Post Offices; and Allen Tupper True, who Schlosser rightly proclaims “Denver’s greatest muralist,” with his paintings in the Brown Palace and the State Capitol.
There are some risky choices here. Are artist Julius P. Ambrusch’s terra cotta embellishments on the Art Deco facade of the Mayan Theatre on Broadway a true masterpiece, or are they just garish commercial folly? Are Alley Henson’s 13 red panels that decorate the Cruise Room cocktail lounge in the Oxford Hotel timeless treasures or are they simply kitsch that has held up over time?
Nostalgia plays a huge role in this lineup. But maybe the ability to make people remember our collective history in a way that unites us, rather than divides us, is one aspect that makes an object great. Itap debatable, for sure.
And that is the real value in this book. Itap pretty to look at, evokes a strong sense of civic pride, and it is also a very concise, historic view of how this city, its people, its artists and its cultural gatekeepers defined what should be made, supported, commemorated and displayed communally during a long period of civic progress.
The values of that era may not reflect exactly the values of the current era, where the diversity of both the population and art forms are such critical factors in public-art decision-making. Schlosser is well aware, and makes it clear with her captions.
But one value of old and new art does overlap: beauty. Schlosser has summed up what it meant then, and invites us to reflect on how we consider it now.
The book is $55, and is currently available for purchase at the Denver Art Museum, Molly Brown House, The Den, Modern Nomad and David Cook Gallery.
