If he did hide a collection of art in the mountains,it is likely that he left clues that only those that were interested in both his love of the Superstitions and his work would recognize.The best clues might be found in his book "De Grazia and His Mountain" and on the grounds of his gallery.

This article has a few photos of the gallery grounds.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewart ... p?id=47473

Regards:Somehiker

HAHAHA I have herd a different story. I herd he was at circle stones with these five guy's one who is the manager at a local airport and my source for this info. He claims they where all sitting around the fire talking. De Grazia then stood up and walked into the darkness for somewhere between 15 and 30 min. De Grazia then returned to the camp. Later he had told some of the people that he had hid his paintings in a very small cave then covered the hole.

Best Wishes
Kurt Painter

This is from the De Grazia Gallery in the sun. "To protest inheritance taxes on works of art, DeGrazia hauled about 100 of his paintings on horseback into the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix and set them ablaze in 1976. This infamous event was reported in such publications as The Wall Street Journal and People magazine, becoming part of DeGrazia's legend before his death in 1982. By this time, the artist had established the DeGrazia Foundation to ensure the permanent preservation of his art and architecture for future generations" Check out Peoples Magazine 1976. de Grazia himself is quoted saying that he took the paintings deep into the wilderness and set them up like a tee pee and then set fire to them with a cigar. After he burned them he then made two small indian crosses over the burned paintings to mark there location.

Best Wishes
Kurt Painter

UPDATE:

There are probably as many (if not more) versions of the story about Ge Grazia taking some Paintings into Angel Springs, as there are of every other legend of the Superstitions.

The actual event was filmed by a man named Bernard Coyle, and the video below is a clip from that film, with Ted De Grazia telling the story in his own words. It was originally filmed with a silent 8mm movie camera, and the audio was later dubbed in (by De Grazia himself) when it was transferred to video tape.

I don't think you will get any closer to the REAL story than that!

You can click on the link or the photo of De Grazia in the mountains. Either one should take you to the video clip.

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc73 ... Grazia.mp4



Best,

Jim

I loved De Grazia paintings. When I was a little girl,I remember getting his Christmas cards and seeing photos of his work in the Arizona highways in the 70s. Its sad to see those painting go up in smoke.He must of had a hard time doing so,I would.Its here in the 1981 Arizona highways that he was a Italian descendant of 3 generation hard rock miners. No wonder he had a infatuation with the Superstition Mountains too. Here is a picture of him with the Weavers Needle and some of is paintings from 1974 A hwys.







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Jim - Thanks so much for the video link. It was sad to watch, but I enjoyed hearing his story from his own mouth.

I fully understand his reasoning behind what he did - how unfortunate for the world and especially the SW to lose out on some beautiful works of art all because of the greed of our government.

Paul,

In spite of that video, you can bet that 20-30-40 years from now, there will still be people climbing around Angel Springs, searching for the 18 paintings Bob Ward claimed he helped De Grazia bury there.

Just the same as you will still find people out in the mountains searching for the Dutchman's Gold, trying to follow clues from the "Bark Notes" and the "Holmes Manuscript".

The "uninformed" have always outnumbered the "Informed" by a wide margin. The result being that most people tend to believe in what they hear, and read, most often, and march to the beat of the loudest drum.

Listen close, and you will hear a different beat way off in the background.

Best,

Jim

Hehe - I "hear" you - quite literally

An elderly friend of mine, "Two Guns", was Ted's buddy for time in the 70s. He appeared as the bad guy in a short film by Ted titled "Over the Rainbow" and also appears in a coffee table bio book about DeGrazia. I haven't seen the movie in a few years but I think there is a scene in which some of Ted's paintings are buried in a mine cave in. A couple of enterprising individuals are hawking copies of the movie with a not-so-subtle hint that the movie is a treasure map to some of Ted's "lost" work. That sales pitch is rubbish.
Before Two guns got a little less sharp, he told me that the painting he slashed in the mineshaft scene was one that Ted considered unsaleable and would have destroyed or painted over it anyway.
Maybe this is the source of the confusion about "buried" paintings.

Hello Ghost - and welcome to the Treasure Hunting forum!

You're probably right about how that story about De Grazia burying some paintings got started.

Sometimes it only takes a small spark to start a big fire!

Best,

Jim