Bob Dejulio (Book)

Bob DeJulio is a 96-page art book, a hardcover that Open Library dates to May 2004. It collects the paintings of a Colorado artist who set out to show scenes from the Old West that nobody ever photographed. Open Library files it as a catalogue of one artist's work, with Colorado and Art among its subjects.

The description says DeJulio listened to hundreds of stories from people who lived in the historic era before he painted. It names Earl May, an eighty-five-year-old stagecoach driver who ran the route from Canon City to Victor, and Tuffy Flor, a longtime resident and undertaker of Ouray. It also mentions DeJulio's own relatives, who grew up in the region.

Color is a theme too. The description points to the first warming rays of sun touching mountain peaks on a bitterly cold winter day, and to the San Juan Mountains in all their varied moods. For a reader who knows Ouray and the San Juans, this is a book to leave out on the coffee table and return to.

This book is for people who love the San Juan Mountains and the mining-era West, and for anyone who collects Colorado art. Readers who have visited Ouray will recognize the names and the country behind the paintings. It also suits families who want a picture book of local history, and gift buyers looking for something specific to this part of Colorado. It is an art book, not a history text, so expect images and short descriptions rather than a long narrative. If you want the stories behind the scenes, the book's description tells you where the artist found them.

Bob DeJulio has worked as a sign painter and a painter of western watercolors. A 2021 Ouray News column says sign painting paid the bills while the watercolors were his passion, and that he lived in Montrose at age 90. Open Library's subject heading for the book gives his full name as Robert James DeJulio, born 1931. The same column says he helped turn Ridgway into a stand-in for Fort Smith, Arkansas, for the 1968 film True Grit. His author page has more.

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Ouray sits in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, and the book's description leans on that country. It mentions Ouray's longtime undertaker Tuffy Flor, a stagecoach run from Canon City to Victor, and mountain light on winter peaks.

Ridgway also figures in DeJulio's life. The 1968 film True Grit was shot with local help, and a 2021 Ouray News column reports that DeJulio, then working as a sign painter, was hired to transform the small ranching town of Ridgway into Fort Smith, Arkansas, using paint. It is a small, concrete example of a painter whose trade and art both came from the same landscape.

The column also records that sign painting was his steady work in the years before computers took over lettering, and that his heart was in painting western watercolors. We cannot tell you from the sources we found which of the book's paintings are in watercolor, so we do not say. We can say the book's subject is the local past as the people who lived it remembered it.

Source: Ouray News, How one local resident painted with a lot of grit