Ettore de Grazia - Art Career: Early Years

Art Career: Early Years

In 1944, DeGrazia built his first gallery from adobe, with the help of friends, on the corner of Prince and Campbell Road in Tucson, Arizona. He remembered well the criticism he received in those days from people who thought his art was no good. They did not like how DeGrazia followed his own rules in art and how he did whatever he wanted. On one occasion, DeGrazia was sitting in the Mexican restaurant Rosita's (located next to his gallery) and a man walked in and shouted to him from across the room. He said," Hey! You DeGrazia?!" DeGrazia did not reply, he kept talking with his friend. The man, who obviously did not like Ted, strode over to DeGrazia's table and interrupted him. He said to Ted, "You're that guy who thinks you can paint on whatever you want, right?- No rules, you just do whatever you want!" DeGrazia still did not say anything. There was a basket of tortillas on the table, so DeGrazia took one out and began to paint on it. When he is finished, he takes his brush and he autographed the angry man's clean, white shirt. Before the man stormed out, cursing at DeGrazia, the only thing Ted said to him was, "Now I have painted on everything." The man did not bother to take his original tortilla painting with him, so it is currently on display at the Gallery In the Sun.

DeGrazia grew tired of the city. He thought that too many people were moving to Tucson and he wanted to get away from its growth. In 1949, he bought 10 acres of land for $10 an acre north of Tucson, near the Santa Catalina Foothills. There was no electricity, gas, or plumbing. All of his water he carted in big barrels from Tucson. He cooked his food with an old wood-burning stove and took his showers outside under a ramada with a bucket, wash towel, and soap. Then, little by little, construction companies begin to bulldoze the big saguaro cacti around him to build homes, country clubs, and shops. This saddens DeGrazia.

In 1951, he started work on what would become the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun Historic District with the building of the Mission in the Sun and his home near the corner of Swan and Skyline roads. The DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun was built in 1965. Artists and friends who spent time at the new gallery included Thomas Hart Benton, Olaf Wieghorst, Jack Van Ryder, Pete Martinez and Ross Santee. In 2006, the 10-acre (40,000 m2) property, now a museum of DeGrazia's work, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ted and Alexandra get a divorce in 1946, and a year later, DeGrazia marries Marion Sheret in a small chapel in Mexico.

DeGrazia's work first appeared in Arizona Highways magazine in 1941. In 1960, DeGrazia received a commission to produce cover art for UNICEF greeting cards. His designs have appeared on lithographs, collector plates, greeting cards, and in a series of Goebel figurines made by the same company that is famous for its Hummel figurines.

In 1976, Degrazia engaged in a protest against inheritance taxes based on assessed market values of his work. The artist claimed the U.S. Internal Revenue Service rulings made him "a millionaire on paper and my heirs will have to pay taxes for which there is no money." In his well-publicized protest, Degrazia rode horseback into the Superstition Mountains and burned 100 of his paintings.