Mysteries of the Mesa: the Restoration of William Robinson Leigh’s “Thunder Mountain”

When East Coast artist William R. Leigh (1866-1955) embarked on his first tour of the West in 1906, he recorded in his notebook that his visit to the Zuni Pueblo was like “a waking dream… of endless beauty.” Upon viewing the sacred Dowa Yalanne (Thunder Mountain), a prominent feature near the pueblo, he described it as “…bathed in the magical light of the red, low sun while the town and the plains were already in shadow.”  Influenced by the 19^th-century American tradition of panoramic landscapes, Leigh carefully constructed Thunder Mountain to emphasize both a sense of grandeur and an Arcadian portrayal of the Zuni in their ancient homeland. One of the most highly trained artists working in America, Leigh also became one of the most prolific painters of the American West. “The West had called forth the best there is in me,” he declared in 1913. Thunder Mountain, then, endures as a distinctive expression of the region’s magic and mystery. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.