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William Phillips’ passion for aviation is second only
to his infatuation with the American experience and the impact
that the land, its people, its history and its values have upon
one another. This is what he calls The American Landscape, paintings
about a time, a place and the course of American events.
The Grand Canyon is the iconic American landscape. For
millennia, the only sounds heard in the Canyon were those of
the elements and all things wild. As man arrived the sounds of
early domestication could, only faintly, be heard. By the late
1800s, outfits such as Wellington Starky’s Diamond Bar Ranch
heralded the news that cattle was king, even in the Grand Canyon.
In 1919, man took to the skies over the Canyon for the
first time. A mere nine years later, Grand Canyon Airlines was
taking tourists on scenic flights in Ford Tri-Motors such as
this one, bouncing the drone of radial engines from ancient rim
to ancient rim. Flights such as this confirmed that as yet another
era neared its end in the Canyon, a new one had begun as the
crown jewel of the American Landscape. |