ABOUT THIS BOOK

In Tucson during the 1950s, nearly everyone knew, or wanted to know, the southwestern artist Mac Schweitzer. Born Mary Alice Cox in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921, she grew up a tomboy who adored horses, cowboys, and art. After training at the Cleveland School of Art and marrying, she adopted her maiden initials (M. A. C.) as her artistic name and settled in Tucson in 1946. With a circle of influential friends that included anthropologists, designer-craftsmen, and Native American artists, she joined Tucson’s “Early Moderns,” receiving exhibits, commissions, and awards for her artwork. When she died in 1962, Mac’s artistic legacy faded from public view, but her prize-winning works attest to a thriving career.

Author Ann Lane Hedlund draws from the artist’s letters, photo albums, and published reviews to tell the story of Mac’s creative and adventuresome life. Her watercolors, oil paintings, prints, and sculptures—a diverse body of work never before seen in public—range from naturalistic studies of Sonoran Desert animals to impressionistic landscapes to moody abstractions. A sharp observer of Indigenous life, she sketched and painted scenes of Navajo (Diné), Hopi, O’odham, and Yaqui people and events. These unique portrayals of the Southwest illustrate this saga of a maverick artist rediscovered.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ann Lane Hedlund is a cultural anthropologist who collaborates with Indigenous weavers and other visual artists. She is author of Navajo Weaving in the Late Twentieth Century and Gloria F. Ross & Modern Tapestry.

REVIEWS

“No one has ever delved deeper into the life, unique artistic contributions, and cultural milieu of a Southwestern painter than Ann Hedlund has done for Mac Schweitzer. This amazing woman comes off the page and into our hearts in Ann’s writing, surpassing David Robert’s biography of Everett Reuss and Roxanna Robinson’s of Georgia O’Keefe. Mac Schweitzer will finally and deservedly join the pantheon of the most memorable and culturally significant artists in the history of American Deserta."—Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Against the American Grain and The Desert Smells Like Rain

“From the accomplished rodeo posters of her teenaged years, to the wildlife imagery of the Sonoran desert and the Hopi and Navajo subjects of the 1950s, painter Mac Schweitzer vividly captured Arizona’s landscape and its diverse inhabitants. Anthropologist Ann Lane Hedlund (the daughter-in-law Mac did not live to meet) expertly chronicles the Tucson painter’s life and examines her place in the twentieth century artistic landscape of the American Southwest.”—Janet Catherine Berlo, professor of art history emerita, University of Rochester

“What an exhilarating book! Mac Schweitzer’s artwork is powerfully energetic and infused with the singular beauty of the Southwest. The horses alone will knock you out. Importantly, Ann Hedlund’s eloquent rediscovery of this fiercely dedicated and original artist is pertinent to today, a story that can inspire us still.”—Sharman Apt Russell, author of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

“A rigorously researched yet intimate and readable biography of a brilliant Southwestern artist who has been overlooked for too long. Thanks to Ann Lane Hedlund, Mac Schweitzer’s work and tragically short life will now be remembered. The book is both a feast for the eyes and a riveting read.”—Wynne Brown, author of The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art

“Known for her vibrant landscapes and detailed portraits of Native American life, Mac Schweitzer embodied a true spirit of adventure and curiosity. Her work invites us to explore the unknown.”—Tricia Loscher, chief curator, Desert Caballeros Museum

“Mac Schweitzer: A Southwest Maverick and Her Art is a superb book that finally brings this remarkable artist to her rightful place in the world of Southwest art. Scholar Ann Hedlund provides us with an engaging story of fascinating personality and life, and presents abundant examples of Schweitzer’s art, ignored for decades in part because of her gender. Readers will undoubtedly agree that Schweitzer deserves the acclaim she was denied after her death in 1962.”—Aldona Jonaitis, director emerita, University of Alaska Museum of the North

“Fiercely independent, tenacious, and nonconformist, Mac Schweitzer viewed neither realism nor beauty as criteria by which to judge good art. She conveyed essence rather than literal depictions of a scene. Emotive and moody, Mac’s work was imbued with her feelings about place, time, and subject as an outlet for self-expression.”—W. James Burns, executive director, Lake Chapala Society

“A well-researched and lively narrative romp through the life of an indominable, resourceful, and overlooked woman artist who knew what she wanted and created her way West. Hedlund paints for us a vivid diary of a woman whose trajectory reflected a midcentury Anglo-Tucsonan artistic tradition in the Southwest. Mac’s life unfolds in the past, but her spirit still speaks to contemporary readers through the author’s thoughtful framing of her story through the economic, regional, and gender-limiting environments through which she galloped.”—Catherine Whitney, director of curatorial affairs, Honolulu Museum of Art
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. “Driven by Horses!”

2. Starting Out (1921–1946)

Interlude: Arizona Before Mac by Betsy Fahlman

3. Desert Denizens (1946–1958)

4. A Rising Career (1946–1958)

5. In Hopi and Navajo Country (1951–1958)

6. Life and Work at “Navajo” (1958–1961)

7. “South Wind and Fox Tracks” (1960–1962)

Epilogue

Afterword by Mark Bahti

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Credits

Index

About the Author