Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019/ No.141 i Western Art Collector

Opening May 18 at the Tucson Museum of Art in Tucson, Arizona, is Travelogue: Grand Destinations and Personal Journeys, which will highlight historic and contemporary works from the permanent collection, as well as key works on loan, that celebrate travel to exotic and grand destinations. The exhibition, which will open in the James J. and Louise R. Glasser Galleries within the museum, will survey more than 250 years of travel to destinations all around the globe, including the American West. Works of art will include paintings, drawings, photographs, graphics and travel ephemera. Public programs are planned throughout the run of the exhibition, which continues through September 29. The show is organized by the Tucson Museum of Art and co-curated by museum curators Julie Sasse and Christine Brindza. “Artists have long…

Returning for its 47th year, Western Art Association’s National Fine Art Show & Auction opens May 17 at the Kittitas Valley Event Center in Ellensburg, Washington. The three-day event will feature up to 45 artists who will be offering works that speak to Western culture. The opening night celebration on May 17 includes an hour-long quick draw event that will feature 20 artists. After the quick draw will be an auction to sell off the completed works. The main auction will take place May 18 and will feature 75 pieces of original art. This year’s feature and poster artist is Hulan Fleming of Monroe, Washington. Fleming is the only artist who has participated in every show and auction for the last 47 years. His poster image is titled Taking a…

Editor’s Note: We are honored that Virginia Couse Leavitt, granddaughter to Eanger Irving Couse, has given us an exclusive excerpt from her new book, Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Times of an American Artist, 1866-1936, a book that has been 34 years in the making and provides an insightful and personal biography of one of Taos’ most important artists. Swallows arrived and built mud nests in the eaves, and the Couses named their own “little mud house” Casa Golondrina, “house of the Swallow.” “I never dreamed one’s own home could give them so much pleasure as this is giving us,” Virginia enthused. In the mornings Couse painted in his studio, and in the afternoons he made furniture for the house while Virginia worked to turn their barren placita into a…

There are certain places that exude art and culture. Not merely disparate elements in the form of museums, galleries, events, public murals and displays, but something more—something that seems to be woven into the very fabric of the place itself, something that cannot be parsed out or entirely explained. New Mexico is one of those places. Native lands, copious with the history and culture of its peoples, are scattered throughout the state, playing a central role in this atmosphere. And the state’s many national forests, preserves and geologic wonders provide continuous inspiration for creativity. The capital city of Santa Fe is abundant with institutions that support and elevate the arts, and among all this, there is simply an undeniable pull toward art that is thick in the atmosphere. One can’t…

When Roseta Santiago moved to northern New Mexico to paint she had a studio at Nambé Pueblo. There were two Indian ponies, Navajo Smoke and Snow. “It was magical watching them frolic in the snow,” she recalls, “and the white Appaloosa on the white snowy background was the perfect painting challenge.” Snow Pony is a painting of the Appaloosa, sometimes called a Leopard Appaloosa, which were bred by the Nez Perce Indians of the Pacific Northwest after horses were reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish in the 16th century. Santiago frequents horse farms in the area, observing and learning more about their anatomy and habits, and gathering information, impressions and inspiration for her paintings. Bill Anton says, “The focus of my work has always been mood and passion. If…

Each year Settlers West Galleries in Tucson, Arizona, holds its Summer Show, an anticipated affair featuring 80 original works from 44 established and upcoming artists working in Western subject matter. Among those included in the show are Daniel Tennant, John Fawcett, Ann Hanson, Adeline Halvorson, Darcie Peet, Robert Griffing, Bradley Schmehl and more. “Our annual Summer Show offers a unique mix of new and important works by our well-established and notable artists alongside fresh paintings by up-and-comers in the fine art world. Collectors will find over 80 pieces on display at this long-standing event that celebrates the end of our high season here in Tucson, Arizona,” says gallery manager Mike Salkowski. Tumble from Finger Rock tells the story of Peet’s trek into Finger Rock Canyon in Tucson’s Santa Catalina Mountains.…

Starting May 3, Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will present a variety of works from painter Tom Perkinson and woodworking duo Eucled Moore and Marilyn Endres. Although their medium of choice differs, Cyndi Hall, the associate director at Manitou Galleries, says, “The artists, Tom Perkinson and Moore & Endres, both balance organic atmosphere in their work, one you can literally feel and touch as the polished wood glides under your hand—the other is a visual feast of natural environments we are surrounded by every day.” Moore got his start with woodworking while he was living in Africa, where his father was a missionary. Located at the mission site was a woodshop where Moore learned fundamental shop skills and woodturning from his father. He continued to perfect his craft,…

Every two years the Couse Foundation in Taos, New Mexico, hosts a weekend of events focused around its anticipated Biennial Gala and Art Auction. The celebration is a fundraiser for the programming and exhibitions held through the foundation and the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. This year’s sixth edition, taking place June 14 to 16, also kicks off an ambitious capital campaign to fund the Lunder Research Center, which will be dedicated to the scholarship of the Taos Society of Artists. This new project expands the site’s reach beyond Eanger Irving Couse and Joseph Henry Sharp to all members of the illustrious artist group. Presented during every Biennial is a curated program of brand-new events that entice collectors, dealers and artists back to the site for the festivities. “Our theme this year…

In February the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville, Texas, named Darrell Beauchamp as the museum’s new executive director. Beauchamp, a Texas native, has most recently served as the executive director of the Western Heritage Museum and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame in Hobbs, New Mexico. He has spent the last 33 years at museums all around the country, including serving as the founding executive director of the Pearce Museum in Corsicana, Texas, and as the CEO for several world-class museums, including the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, and the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Beauchamp, a father of three grown children, earned a doctorate from Texas A&M University–Commerce. “I am thrilled to have been appointed as the director of the Museum of Western Art in…

MAY May 1-31 CANYON ROAD Canyon Road Sculpture Month Santa Fe, NM – (505) 699-3535 www.visitcanyonroad.com May 1-June 2 PHIPPEN MUSEUM Miniature Masterpiece Show & Sale Prescott, AZ – (928) 778-1385 www.phippenartmuseum.org May 3 HERITAGE AUCTIONS American Art Auction Dallas, TX – (877) 437-4824, www.ha.com May 3-24 INSIGHT GALLERY Heaven and Nature Sing Fredericksburg, TX – (830) 997-9920 www.insightgallery.com May 3-June 2 MANITOU GALLERIES Tom Perkinson and Moore & Endres Santa Fe, NM – (505) 986-0440 www.manitougalleries.com May 4 SETTLER’S WEST Summer Show Tucson, AZ – (520) 299-2607, www.settlerswest.com May 4-June 1 MAXWELL ALEXANDER GALLERY Eric Bowman: Under a Desert Sky Los Angeles, CA – (213) 275-1060 www.maxwellalexandergallery.com May 4-Aug. 25 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART Rungius Sesquicentennial: Rungius Reunited and Rarely Seen Rungius Jackson, WY – (307) 733-5771 www.wildlifeart.org…

José Arpa y Perea was born in 1858 in Carmona, Spain. At age 10 he began studying art part time at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Seville. By 1876 he was a fulltime artist, and made his first trip to San Antonio, Texas, in 1899. Two years later he set up a studio and in 1923 he founded a painting school in the city. San Antonio remained his home until he returned permanently to Spain in 1931. Though his time in the United States only spanned three decades, the impact he had on art in Texas was long lasting. On May 18, Heritage Auctions will host its next Texas Art Auction, which will include four notable landscapes by the famed artist from a San Antonio collector. One is a…

In a 1957 short film, Walt Disney stood in his office and held up a framed blueprint for what he called a “super cartoon camera.” Although it had been developed two decades earlier by Disney animators, this was one of the first times the public would get to see the creation: the multiplane camera. It was a beast of filmmaking equipment: a tall steel turret with gear-driven trays filling a center tower that could shuffle the trays up and down left and right on three axes of movement. Mounted on top, and pointing down into the steel battlement, was a camera—a literal eye in the sky. The idea behind the camera was to separate a sequence of animation onto individual glass panes, each representing a different depth in the scene,…

One of the remarkable visual experiences in northern New Mexico is to drive north through the Rio Grande Gorge toward Taos. After traveling at river level for miles, the road rises up above the Taos Plateau through which the gorge runs. The feeling is one of discovery, as if tens of thousands of people living in the region didn’t exist and you had made a great discovery. The Rio Grande Rift, up to 800 feet deep, slices through the high desert plateau, formed not by the erosion of river water but the action of tectonic plates and volcanos millions of years ago. The river, which begins in southern Colorado, found the rift to begin its nearly 1,900-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico. P.A. Nisbet, who lives in nearby Santa…

Maria Hajic, director of naturalism at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has assembled the work of four artists who “create work that incorporates and responds to our changing natural environment in imaginative, whimsical and thought-provoking ways.” The exhibition, Into the Woods, opens May 24 and continues through June 22. Each artist comes to the subject of wildlife art from a different perspective and each creates art that gives the viewer yet another perspective of the richness of the wild world. Susan Brearey reduces her experience of nature and wildlife to essential forms, inspired by a visit to view the cave paintings at Lascaux, France, in the mid-1980s. She says, “I am inspired by the peace, beauty and solitude I find within the experience of moving through wilderness…

Nature’s beauty is manifest at every size, from the grand vistas that are too big to even comprehend to the tiny elements that can fit in a pair of cupped hands. Such is the case with Heaven and Nature Sing, a new two-artist show featuring the works of Phil Bob Borman, who paints massive storm fronts and cloud formations that fill the sky from soil to space, and Jhenna Quinn Lewis, who depicts finches, sparrows and other small birds as they are perched on small objects. The show, which will open May 3 at InSight Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas, will allow collectors to admire the big and small, and everything in between. For Borman, these subjects are evidence of a larger power at work, one that inspires his paintings at…

Bill Anton hadn’t done a major one-man show in nearly 18 years. When Brad Richardson from Legacy Gallery approached him about one, Anton accepted the challenge and spent nine months prepping for the show. By the time the opening of Under the Spell of the West rolled around, Anton could feel the butterflies in his stomach. “Oh it was interesting. I could feel it all coming toward me. But then on Friday night before the show, there was a party at Brad’s house, some of his friends and his collectors, and the party just set the mood. It drew all the energy to the right places,” Anton says. “By the time the show had started the next day the anxiety was gone and I was ready.” In the end, he…

Taos, New Mexico, has many attractions, not the least of which is the mountains and light that attracted a group of artists to settle there in the early 20th century and to form a group known as the Taos Society of Artists. Visiting Taos a century later is like stepping back in time. Its museums and historic artist’s homes and studios offer a direct connection to that early period. Nowhere is the connection more tangible and experiential than at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, now on the National Register of Historic Places. It comprises the home and studio of Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936) and the recently restored 1915 studio of Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953). Recently added to the ensemble is a building that will become an archive and research center within…

Chinese landscapes and cultures will take center stage in the exhibition East Meets West at Trailside Galleries in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, May 20 through June 1. The show features the artwork of three prominent painters—Huihan Liu, Calvin Liang and Jie Wei Zhou—that range from boats and waterways to figures. According to the gallery, “The contemporary Chinese art scene has continued to rapidly evolve and gain worldwide recognition, much of it due to increased contact with the West. Artists such as Liang, Liu and Zhou continue to find both critical and financial success as they redefine Chinese art, blending Western influences with their unique and ancient heritage.” Zhou focuses on ethnic tribes in Tibet, Mongolia and China, such as the Miao people. Among his paintings for the show is Miao Girl,…

This year marks the Phippen Museum’s 45th annual Western Art Show & Sale, a Memorial Day Weekend tradition held in Prescott, Arizona at the historic Yavapai Courthouse plaza. The event features original works from some of the nation’s top artists from across the country working in Western subject matter today, including Jason Lohmeier, Russell L. Parker, Rob Richards, Yao Vilaubi, Bill Cramer, Gary Byrd, Karen Clarkson, Sarah Phippen, Sam Thiewes and Kim Seyesnem Obrzut, among many others. “With artists participating from as far away as Washington and New York to Wyoming, Missouri and Texas, the Phippen Museum’s annual art show and sale provides art collectors and Western art enthusiasts with a comprehensive look at some of the best Western art in America today. And be sure not to miss the…

On May 21 Sotheby’s will present its spring American art auction, and once again it will have an impressive lineup of Western pieces for collectors. “I think we have a nice survey of Western works, certainly some of the big names of the genre. What unites them all is the provenance; they’re fresh to the market and they are well priced,” says Elizabeth Pisano, Sotheby’s vice president and specialist in the American art department. “The market has been selective, but when a collector is presented high-quality works that are fresh to the market, we’ve seen them chase those special examples.” One highlight from the sale is Thomas Hart Benton’s Desert Dawn, a 1961 landscape with two grazing horses. The work, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, comes from the collection of…

Perhaps the most exhilarating part of any auction—aside from the thrill of the chase—is feasting your eyes on the treasure trove of items awaiting a new home. The resulting catch-22, however, is having to make the difficult decision of what to take home with you after the auction. With its spring Arts of the American West auction, Hindman has made it that much harder to decide. The auction features a stunning variety of more than 350 lots, including historic and contemporary Western and wildlife paintings and bronzes, Native American artwork, Southwestern jewelry, Native American baskets, Pueblo pottery, Navajo textiles and Western furniture—truly something for everyone. Highlighting the painting session is a work by Kathryn Woodman Leighton, who is celebrated for her thoughtful portraits of Native Americans. During one of her…

Great artworks make their way to auctions at all times of the year, not just when the auction house is looking for consignments, which is why Altermann Galleries & Auctioneers has started directing bidders to its website, where last-minute additions can be added to the catalog. It paid off last year when a piece by William Penhallow Henderson, estimated at $150,000 to $250,000, sold for $465,000, a world record for the New England-born artist who spent a great deal of time in the West. Bidders couldn’t see the work in the catalog, or even in the printed addendum slipped into it on auction day, but it was viewable online, which didn’t deter bidders. “As our auctions get closer and closer we just keep adding these great pieces, and it allows…