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.
One of the least known aspects of the life of Charles Strausenback—founder of Garden of the Gods Trading Post—is his career as an artist. Largely self-taught, he began making art as a youth by carving souvenirs from gypsum found in a rock formation in Garden of the Gods park (see previous blog A Unique Souvenir: Gypsum Carvings Made at Garden of the Gods).
In his early twenties Strausenback began to draw and paint on paper and canvas; the earliest known paintings date from 1914 and depict cowboys and Western scenes.
In the 1920s Strausenback made paintings of two buildings that he was associated with, the first was Curt Goerke’s “The Indian” trading post and the other was his own trading post constructed in 1929; both paintings were used as advertising postcards.
His subject matter gradually turned to scenes from Garden of the Gods, Native American themes and portraits and landscapes of the Southwest. Painting and artwork consumed much of Strausenback’s time during the 1930s.
Before 1935 he studied briefly under Boardman Robinson, then director and instructor at the Broadmoor Art Academy, later becoming director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1936. Robinson introduced Strausenback to the modernist movement, and he began using opaque watercolors to make angular representational paintings of landscapes and Pueblo Indian designs.
Beginning about 1934 much of Strausenback’s artwork was signed with the pseudonym Charley Earnesta, derived from his first and middle names Charles Ernest.
He also painted under the names Charley Yazza (for Navajo themed work) and Tong Say Ontya (or Tohn Say Ontay) for Pueblo themes. It is unknown why he used different names for some of his artwork, but it has been speculated that he was trying to distance himself from his German ancestry considering events transpiring in Europe at the time.
Strausenback’s only solo exhibition occurred in 1936 when his modern canvases were displayed in the Chappell House, then the home of the Indian collection of the Denver Art Museum. A critique of the show by art museum director Donald Bear was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette January 8, 1936, under the title, “Strausenback Wins Renown as Artist.” In his assessment, Bear wrote:
Something quite original in picture-making claims our attention when viewing the present show of opaque watercolors by Charley Earnesta now on view at Chappell House. These are neither pictures in the ordinary sense of the word, nor formal designs, having attributes of both. They are picture-designs, suggested by the art of the American Indian, by their painting, their rug designs and Kachina dolls.
Earnesta, who originated this particular idiom, takes first the natural motif and reworks his material with Indian pattern designs which make the picture. He very wisely insists that these pictures have no symbolic meaning. Because of the gaiety and, likewise, because of their geometry and color, we imagine them as staged sets or as frescoes suited for a simple, functional architecture.
Mr. Earnesta was born in Mexico, is familiar with the art of the Mayan, as well as that of the American Indian, and the native arts and crafts of the southwest. This is an exhibition that we can enjoy because the work not only fulfils its intention, but is also amusing and not without charm.
While Strausenback exhibited his modern paintings at area art shows in an attempt to gain attention as an artist, he continued to work in oils and standard watercolor media. Watercolors made in 1936 and 1937, when Charles and Esther began to spend their winters in Phoenix, Arizona, depict scenes of the Arizona desert, saguaros, the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix, and San Xavier del Bac Mission near Tucson. These paintings show a mature artist working in a variety of styles. Oils paintings of this time depicted New Mexico adobes, and landscapes of the Garden of the Gods.
Strausenback stopped making art by 1940 as no known examples of his work are dated later than 1939.
The following series of images show the sequence of Strausenback’s artwork and print making. The process started with a photograph of Awa Tsireh (San Ildefonso Pueblo) taken by Strausenback, who then made a pencil drawing in 1939 from the photograph. From the pencil drawing a lithograph was produced.
