Month: May 2022

This blog is adapted from Chapter 7: “Trader as Artist” in our book Garden of the Gods Trading Post. This series of three blogs not only expands on the information in our book, but also reproduces the artwork in color since the book was printed in black-and-white.

Charles Strausenback, founder of Garden of the Gods Trading Post, had been painting and drawing from a young age. But in the summer of 1938 he began working in a new medium, and produced a series of limited-edition lithographs and etchings over the next two years. The decision to make prints over original artwork was likely driven by economics; whereas his paintings sold for about $35 each, lithos could be sold for the more appealing price of $7.50 for small prints up to $12.50 for the largest. 

The lithographs were produced in editions ranging from twenty prints per image to editions as large as fifty impressions. Landscapes from Garden of the Gods were frequent subjects of Strausenback’s artwork.

It’s tempting to speculate Strausenback had his lithographs inked and pulled by Out West Printing and Stationary Company, as they were the only company listed under the “Lithographing” section of the 1938 Colorado Springs city directory. But none of the prints have yet provided a source for the printer.

The lithographs encompass a series of forty-five unique illustrations, depicting scenes from the Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak and scenic venues around Colorado Springs, also landscapes of Arizona including Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and the Superstition Mountains, as well as New Mexico adobes, and even San Juan Capistrano Mission in California. 

In 1936 the Strausenbacks began spending winter months in Phoenix, Arizona, and desert landscapes became a subject of Charles’s artwork. Many desert scenes were depicted in his lithos, actually surpassing the Colorado scenes in quantity, these were sold from the Strausenback Indian Silver Shops in Phoenix. 

Additionally, Strausenback made portraits of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians who worked for him; Awa Tsireh, Severo Tafoya, and Porfilia Tafoya were among his subjects.

To accommodate the tourist market accustomed to purchasing postcard souvenirs of their visits to Garden of the Gods, Charles Strausenback produced a series of five scratchboard prints of scenes from the Pikes Peak region that sold at budget prices. Approximately postcard-sized, these prints were not signed by Strausenback and were printed in editions of 100. 

Cowboy themes used in his very first paintings reemerged in Strausenback’s art as he made prints of a speeding stagecoach, cowboys on bucking broncs, and western towns. 

Along with the lithographs Strausenback also experimented with copper plate etchings, and a small series were made with subjects such as Navajos and Plains Indians, Garden of the Gods, and the mountains near Phoenix. 

Each lithograph or etching was originally accompanied by a small green-colored paper certificate with the title of the print and the size of the edition hand written in pencil by Strausenback. Few of these have survived to the present.

These lithographs and etchings provide evidence that Strausenback was a talented, if underrated, artist, not just an astute businessman.

Strausenback’s lithos were numbered in the image in the order that they were created. The series number and a capital S for Strausenback were drawn into the image, typically in the bottom right corner, hidden among the elements of the subject matter. The etchings were not identified in the same fashion. The lithos were typically hand signed in the following fashion:

Below is a chart of the series number, title and edition size of Charles Strausenback’s prints as known at present. One print, Mount Holy Cross, Colo has not yet had its series number recorded.