Maynard Dixon, Round Dance, 1931, oil on canvasboard, 15 7/16 x 19 7/8 in., Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of Herald R. Clark
Dixon loved and respected the indigenous people who often appeared in his paintings. He was inspired by their physical resilience as well as by the spiritual knowledge he believed that they drew from their relationship with the land. At times, they invited him to witness some of their sacred ceremonies, and he believed his role as an artist put him in a unique position to explore these sacred rites. Dixon allowed his imagination to edit and augment the things he saw when visiting with the Hopi and Navajo peoples and acknowledged that others might not see this world as he was presenting it.
