Mining the West: Primary Elements

The artists who portrayed copper mining created of a significant body of regional art that was inspired by an important industry that operated on a vast scale. The rich historical heritage they recorded was produced during an era of considerable economic expansion whose major players had little consideration for the industry’s effects on the environment and human health. These extractive industries meant jobs and profits, yet they left legacies of altered landscapes, environmental degradation, destruction of Native American lands, and public-health challenges, vexing problems that have been of particular concern for contemporary artists.

Betsy Fahlman, adjunct curator of American art at Phoenix Art Museum, curated Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West, on view until March 6, 2022.  She is also a professor of art history at Arizona State University, where she has taught since 1988. Her specialty is American art, and she has had a long scholarly interest in the relationship between American art and industrial themes. She has published widely in the field, and her books and articles have considered a range of artists, including Charles Demuth, John Ferguson Weir, Guy Pène du Bois, Joseph Pennell, Robert Winthrop Chanler, and Marguerite Zorach. She has a strong interest in the art history of Arizona, and has published on New Deal art programs, Lon Megargee, and the state’s early women artists.