Bob Dejulio

A 2021 Ouray News column describes Robert DeJulio as a sign painter who lettered by hand before computers, with western watercolors as his passion. It says he was one of many locals who worked on the 1968 film True Grit, hired to turn the small ranching town of Ridgway into Fort Smith, Arkansas, with paint. At 90, it says, he lived in Montrose.

Open Library's heading for his book gives the name Robert James DeJulio, with 1931 as his birth year, and lists subjects of Colorado, Art and Individual Artist. The book description adds that he talked with hundreds of people who lived through the era he paints, from a stagecoach driver to an Ouray undertaker, as well as relatives of his own. We found no verified details on his training or exhibitions, so we leave them out.

DeJulio paints the past as people remembered it. The description says he gathered stories from men like Earl May, who drove stagecoaches between Canon City and Victor, and Tuffy Flor of Ouray, and he painted scenes that no camera caught. The setting is southwest Colorado, with the San Juan Mountains in all their moods. Color is the second theme: the first sunlight on peaks on a bitterly cold winter morning is the example the description gives. Together these make a record of place and period that suits readers of Colorado mining and ranching history as much as people who just love art.

The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.