Note 1) The following Mahaffey biographical materials are taken from the Askart.com website:

“Born in Albuquerque, Merrill Mahaffey grew up in Colorado, completed his formal art education in California and Arizona, and has explored and painted the American west the whole time. Starting out at Sacramento State, Mahaffey was counseled by a slightly older artist to go to the Bay Area if he wanted to be a painter more than a teacher.

After a year in this cutting-edge environment, Mahaffey returned to Sacramento State. He made periodic museum and gallery excursions back to San Francisco. Mahaffey considers this period and these places the source for his philosophy as a painter. Later as an art teacher at Phoenix College, Mahaffey defined the goal of his first sabbatical succinctly: “I will learn how to draw.” Disciplined study and practice of penmanship, straight lines, circles, and the representation of three dimensions on the two-dimensional plane during this phase gave him the mastery to merge realism with his modernist spirit. “Why not do real paintings of real places with these new skills?” he asked.

Now some four decades later, a partial listing of Mahaffey’s institutional collectors includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Art, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the Denver Art Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. His corporate collector’s include companies like Exxon, Phillips Petroleum and Phelp’s Dodge, all entities with intense interest in geology, and partly because of artist’s like Mahaffey, an ever increasing awareness of the need to respect what is sacred about the land in all of our involvements with it.

Mahaffey’s oeuvre is a link between aesthetic and environmental concerns. He bridges realism with fractal modernism in an ever-evolving style that reflects the highest standards of craftsmanship, exploration and invention. The viewer in search of beauty, intelligence, relevance and originality in both concept and technique will find it all and more in Merrill Mahaffey’s vision.

Education:

Arizona State University – M.F.A.

California College of Arts and Crafts

Sacramento State College – B.A.

Mesa College – Grand Junction, CO

Public Commissions and Awards:

Federal District Court – Denver, CO

Chandler Fine Arts Center – Chandler, AZ

Colorado State Legislature – Denver, CO

Skyharbor International Airport-Phoenix, AZ

Artist in Residence – Rocky Mountain National Park

Solo Exhibitions:

The Chandler Center for the Arts and the Chandler Arts Commission “Merrill Mahaffey The Artists Perspective: 50 Years in the West-2010

Museum of Northern Arizona/Retrospective – Flagstaff, AZ 2008

Duley-Jones Gallery – Scottsdale, AZ 2006-2008

Skyharbor International Airport – Phoenix, AZ 2004

Vanier Gallery – Tucson, AZ 2003

Palm Springs Desert Museum – Palm Springs, CA 2000

Suzanne Brown Gallery – Scottsdale, AZ 1991-2000

Elaine Horwitch Galleries – Scottsdale, AZ 1982-1991

Charlene Cody Gallery – Santa Fe, NM 1998

Maclaren Markowitz Gallery – Boulder, CO 1991-2000

Montana Art Gallery Directors Association Touring Exhibition – 1993

Chandler Fine Arts Center – Chandler, AZ 1992

University of Utah – Salt Lake City, Utah 1987

Museum of the American West – Houston, TX 1985

Fishbach Gallery-New York City, NY 1985

Meredith Long Gallery – Houston, TX 1984

Colorado Springs Fine Art Center – Colorado Springs, CO 1983

Tucson Art Museum-Tucson, AZ 1982

Group Exhibitions:

2nd Annual Grand Canyon Celebration of Art-Kolb Studio, Grand Canyon Village 2010

Eiteljorg Museum Invitational – Indianapolis, IN 1992

Sherry French Gallery – New York City, NY 1991

Jan Cicero Gallery – Chicago, IL 1991

Rocky Mountain National Park, 75th Anniversary Exhibition – 1990

Boundless Realism/Rockwell Museum-Corning New York 1987

R.A.F.T. Exhibition/Scottsdale Center for the Arts-Scottsdale, AZ 1984

Denver Art Museum – Denver, CO 1979

SW Museums Loan Collection/V.P. Mondale’s Residence-Washington D.C. 1978

Selected Collections:

Arizona State University

Arizona Supreme Court

Bernalillo County Court – Albuquerque, NM

Burton Barr Public Library

Colorado Springs Fine Art Center

Colorado State Legislature

Denver Museum of Art

EXXON
Guinness Beer

Hughes Aircraft

IBM Corporation

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Phillip Morris Corporation

Phillips Petroleum Company

Phoenix Art Museum

Robert Redford

Sandra Day O’Connor

Smithsonian Institution – Museum of American Art

Tucson Art Museum

University of Arizona

University of Utah Museum

U.S. District Court – Denver, CO

Publications:

The Contemporary West – Patricia Broder

Merrill Mahaffey Monumental Landscapes – Rudy Turk

Places of the Spirit, Canyon de Chelly – Donald J. Hagerty

Arizona Highways

Art in America

Art Week

ARTnews
Newsweek
Scottsdale Magazine

Southwest Profiles

Miscellaneous:

Painting Juror – National Endowment for the Arts 1989

Instructor – Phoenix College

Instructor – Taos Art School

Instructor – Santa Fe Community College

Source: merrilmahaffey.com with the artist's permission”

Note 2) Mahaffey has a very impressive biographical curriculum vitae. These considerations, the esthetic appeal of this semi-abstract desert composition and the auction records regarding Mahaffey sales support the presale estimate of $1,000-$1,500, as being reasonable and justifiable. In this regard, the highest auction price ever paid for a Mahaffey painting entitled “Canyon Window,” was $18,400 on 7/8/2006, and a Mahaffey painting entitled “Alcove,” which was a very small 11 in. x 8.50 in., brought $1,080 on 6/27/2009.

Title/Subject: Marble Canyon Alcove, 1985 Signed and inscribed. Acrylic on canvas. 46 in. x 64 in. sold for $3,000 on 04/28/2011 at Morton Kuehnert, Houston, TX

Title/Subject: Alcove Signed. Acrylic on canvas. 11 in. x 8.50 in. sold for $1,080 on 06/27/2009 at Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Title/Subject: Signed. Acrylic on canvas. 90 in. x 56 in. sold for $18,400 on 07/08/2006 at Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Photo Image Not Available

Title/Subject: Hualapai Canyon Signed and inscribed. Acrylic on canvas. 70 in. x 120 in. sold for $4,800 on 10/30/1996 at Sotheby’s, NY