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Maximum Extension, 1994
Oil, 32 in x 42 in |
Born in Greenwich Village in New York City, Bruce Aiken attended the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York. His mother, Margaret Aiken Stone, taught him the basics of painting and intrigued him with stories of her native Southwest. At the age of twenty Aiken moved to Arizona and studied at Phoenix College under Merrill Mahaffey. He went to work for the National Park Service at Grand Canyon at Roaring Springs, where he and his wife, Mary, raised three children. His long intimacy with Grand Canyon - its geology, wildlife, and the river that formed it is reflected in his paintings. Aiken produced the silk-screened image used on the collectors envelope for the Grand Canyon stamp issued in January 2000 by the U.S. Postal Service. Aiken feels a debt of gratitude to the National Park Service for the opportunity to work at the Roaring Springs pump house since 1973; he feels it has been essential to his artistic growth.
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Bruce Aiken (b. 1950)