Kate Jordan
The frontispiece of the book, significantly, is a watercolor,
a study for a portrait of Gerda Hyde with her horse, at
Yamsi Ranch, Oregon. Watercolor is quicker, more
spontaneous, sometimes more glowing than oil, and this
luminous study, in red, blue, yellow and brown, hallmarks
the variegated qualities of the works which unfold in the
next 131 pages: actions caught in charcoal and pencil,
moments of stillness in oil pastel or egg tempera. One
thinks, looking at these consummate portraits, of David,
so elegant and plain are the compositions, so rich and
earthy the palette.
Take, for example, one of the first portraits in the book,
that, in egg tempera, of rancher Bet Kettle (born 1933),
HYLAND
