With previews of gallery exhibitions, museum shows and auctions, Western Art Collector is the premier monthly magazine for collectors searching for works by talented living and past artists who depict the West in paintings and sculptures.
When we sit down to create this magazine each month, we have two main objectives: one visual and one intellectual. First and foremost, it is our desire to pass as much information as humanly possible on to you, the collectors, about acquiring art. Just like everything else, knowledge is power and the more information you have at your fingertips, the better decisions you will make when it comes to purchasing art for your collections. This is why we fill the magazine with tips from collectors, museum curators, gallery owners and other art market insiders on important and relevant subjects each month. The other objective is purely visual. We strive to create a complete visual feast for the eyes each and every issue, one filled with newly created art by top…
OWNER Brad Richardson The Legacy Gallery Bozeman, MT; Scottsdale, AZ; and Jackson, WY In 2018, Legacy Gallery will be celebrating our 30th year in business. Throughout those years, I have seen the Western art market continuously expand. The expansion has come in the form of more artists, galleries, auctions and museum shows. Like all markets, there will be corrections—I believe we have been in one for the last couple of years. We have seen artists that used to have sell-out shows struggling to sell their work, well-established galleries closing and others attempting to avoid rent by becoming a virtual gallery (website only). We have seen auctions start up and close in a short period of time and other auctions struggling to match the numbers of the past. Museum shows, which…
The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have partnered to present the groundbreaking new exhibition Albert Bierstadt: Witness to a Changing West, opening June 8, 2018. The exhibition will feature some of the artist’s most important works, including the epic Native American scene The Last of the Buffalo, which maintains a significant presence at the Cody museum. “Bierstadt is best known as America’s premier Western landscape artist. He was also a renowned history painter, a rarely discussed element of his legacy. This major exhibition will address Bierstadt in context of his treatment not just of majestic mountains and lakes but more prominently of bison and American Indians, whom he approached as key subjects for his art,” according to the museum.…
In 2009 Wyoming painter Bob Coronato unveiled a portrait of activist Russell Means. He was shown in modern clothing and with traditional accoutrements, but with an upside-down American flag wrapped around his midsection. The piece, like Means himself, was immediately controversial. Eight years later and the work is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The origins of the piece stretch back about 15 years ago, when Coronato found himself inspired by stories of the American Indian Movement told to him by a friend. He was immediately drawn to Oglala Lakota activist Means, whose involvement in takeovers at Alcatraz, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Mount Rushmore and Wounded Knee made him a polarizing figure—reviled by some, admired as a folk hero by many…
Wyoming artists Aaron and Jenny Wuerker have a joint exhibition, Married to the Landscape, now on view at the Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, Wyoming. The couple, married for 21 years, will be showing 60 recent paintings that establish their vision of the iconic Western landscape, particularly the landscapes of Wyoming. The artists will be showing their works in the museum’s massive McMurray Gallery, where they will be presenting oil paintings as wide as 12 feet. Some of the works are pure landscapes, with land and sky filling the scenes in gorgeous hues, and then some of the works, particularly those by Aaron, show the landscape within a modern context, with farm equipment, freeway overpasses, oil derricks and tanker trucks. In a joint statement, the artists say the scenes they paint…
The 31st annual Trappings of Texas at the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, kicked off April 20 to 22 with a weekend of festivities. The event, which celebrates the ranching lifestyle, featured custom cowboy gear along with fine paintings and sculpture. There was interest across mediums from collectors, allowing for strong sales during the opening week. The show remained on view at the museum through May 28 with any unsold works of art available for purchase. “The 2017 Trappings of Texas was a very successful event for both the Museum of the Big Bend and the artists participating in the show. We had very good attendance at all events and sponsorships to Trappings was at an all-time high,” says Mary Bones, the…
