VERSO
Label, Steven Stern Fine Arts, Beverly Hills, California

Payne biographer Nancy Moure wrote about his Southwestern scenes, “He [Payne] produced a number of works portraying Indians riding through the Southwestern terrain. Sometimes these traversed a flat desert spread over by a vast sky full of magnificent clouds. At other times Indians ride through narrow canyons sided by sheer vertical sandstone cliffs. Totally different in palette from his other themes, these works have a unity within themselves – of color and spirit. Payne’s talent enabled him to project the vastness of the Southwest. He records the silence of the weather-shaped and striped monuments and magnifies their immensity by comparing them to man.”