Tucson, Arizona & Mount Carmel, Utah The Final Years: 1940-1946

In the final years of his life in Tucson, Arizona, Maynard Dixon created his canvases with a sparing use of paint and a subdued color palette. His days in Tucson involved working in the home studio, fleshing out larger oils, or as his health would permit, painting the local desert with his third wife, artist Edith Hamlin, at his side, as she worked on her own pieces.  

In 1939, Dixon and Hamlin purchased land in Mount Carmel, Utah, where the following year they built their summer home. Quite a few of the couple’s paintings share the same subject matter, with Hamlin often placing a small human or animal figure to give scale to her compositions, and Dixon choosing to edit his images, keeping his paintings free of clutter that did not add anything to the overall composition. 

In 1945, Dixon made his last trip to their Mount Carmel home, where he stayed for only three weeks, returning to Tucson due to Utah’s altitude and his poor lung condition. In 1946, Maynard Dixon died in Tucson, Arizona, from a heart attack that was brought on by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.