Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019/ No.144 i Western Art Collector

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Peter H. Hassrick’s new book, The Life & Art of Joseph Henry Sharp, published by the Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in association with the Lunder Research Center at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. The book will complement the Joseph Henry Sharp Online Catalogue, which will launch later this year at www.sharpartcatalogue.com. Sharp’s many studios—a rare buffalo hide tepee, a windowless art school attic space, a well-lit Munich apartment, an elegantly decorated atelier in Cincinnati, a simple adobe church in Taos, two flimsy wooden shacks at Crow Agency, a creaky sheep wagon on Montana’s snowy prairie, and a comfortable and commodious adobe treasure house in Taos—all provided forceful, inventive environments, inspirational ambiance, sanctuaries for selfidentification and forums…

Golden eagles are one of the largest birds in North America with wing spans of more than 6 feet. Often seen in pairs, they are found mostly in the western part of the United States. A golden eagle appears on the national flag of Mexico. The impressive birds appear in a large painting by Swedish artist Lars Jonsson, Spirits of Magdalena Mountains, (Golden Eagles). The Magdalenas are in west-central New Mexico. Jonsson began painting birds at the age of 4 and his first exhibition was at the age of 15 at the Natural History Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. As an ornithologist he comments, “The urge to connect in a deeper sense with nature brings me to long hours of observing and sketching in the field.” He continues, “I can feel a…

Eye for enchantment A crowd watches while Roseta Santiago paints a live model dressed in a hat and coat. In the background, a Spanish guitarist plays his instrument. He notices Santiago’s muse, walks up to her and grabs her by the hand. She throws off her coat, unveiling a salsa dress, and the duo starts dancing in perfect harmony around the crowd. This is just one surprise that visitors can expect during Santiago’s demo for her upcoming show at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “That’s the kind of unexpected things that happen in my world,” she says. The show, which runs August 30 to September 14, is titled Encantado, which translates to “charmed” in Spanish. As the title suggests, Santiago is enchanted with the people, places and…

At Home A year or so ago Colorado artist Jay Moore, a noted landscape painter, started painting wildlife in his landscape pieces. This was certainly not a new development for Western art, but it pushed Moore into a new exciting direction, one that was rewarding to him and thrilling for his collectors. “I paint whatever I feel like painting next, and whatever whim comes to me after that. I feel like I’m taking little chances that have had big results. Whether it’s landscapes alone or landscapes with a smattering of wildlife, it’s pushed me to decide who I’m going to be going forward,” Moore says. “No matter what it is, I’m working harder now more than ever. The last show was sort of a foray into this idea, an exploration…

Naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir once famously wrote, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” On July 22, Turner Fine Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, will take his words to heart with a three-artist show titled And Into the Forest I Go, featuring works from painters Kathryn Mapes Turner and Shanna Kunz and sculptor Paul Rhymer. The gallery, which will host an artist reception on July 25 from 5 to 7 p.m., will present work from the gallery’s owner, Turner, including her piece Cottonwood Season, which was created in plein air. “The feel is very painterly and the composition draws the viewer down the road and on a journey,” she says._“It is a high-key image with a richness of paint quality where…

The Phippen Museum’s annual Hold Your Horses! Invitational Exhibition & Sale celebrates the majestic nature of the equine form through the works of dozens of artists who depict horses. Each artist has a connection to their subject matter, whether it be a lifelong love of riding, tending horses on a family ranch, or simply a fascination and passion for these beasts that have become such an ingrained and integral aspect of our society. This year’s Hold Your Horses! runs August 3 through September 22. Artists recognized in the 2019 show for their ability to capture the horse’s complex form include Barbara Meikle, Harper Henry and R A Sturgill, among many others. “Why do we honor the horse with this special annual exhibition? Because this incredible animal, through its powerful persona…

Artist, illustrator and muralist Zachary Pullen was about to begin work on a series of commissions when the person who had commissioned him, collector Mick McMurry, died in 2015. The project, based around the Cowboy Code of Ethics, would never come to pass. Fast forward four years later and Pullen has completed work on a similar series of work meant to honor McMurry and his life, and the show will open August 10 at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming. Cowboy Ethics — A Life Well Lived will feature 10 murals, each one highlighting one of the Cowboy Code of Ethics as well as a part of McMurry’s life and career. “I present the Cowboy Code of Ethics through his life, snippets of his life,” Pullen says. “He was…

AUGUST August 1-31 GIACOBBE-FRITZ FINE ART David Kammerzell & Charlie Meckel Santa Fe, NM – (505) 986-1156 www.giacobbefritz.com August 1-31 SAMARAH FINE ART Group Show Whitefish, MT – (406) 862-3339 www.samarahfineart.com August 2-5 MANITOU GALLERIES Kim Wiggins Santa Fe, NM – (505) 986-0440 www.manitougalleries.com August 3 THE BRINTON MUSEUM Bighorn Rendezvous Big Horn, WY – (307) 672-3173 www.thebrintonmuseum.org August 3-10 MOUNTAIN TRAILS GALLERY Migration Jackson, WY – (307) 734-8150, www.mtntrails.net August 3-September 22 PHIPPEN MUSEUM Hold Your Horses! Invitational Exhibition & Sale Prescott, AZ – (928) 778-1385 www.phippenmuseum.org August 7-28 ANN KOROLOGOS GALLERY Terry Gardner: Western Mysteries, Intimate Views Basalt, CO – (970) 927-9668, www.korologosgallery.com August 8-11 EL MUSEO CULTURAL DE SANTA FE Objects of Art Santa Fe Santa Fe, NM – (505) 660-4701 www.objectsofartsantafe.com August 8-18 LEGACY GALLERY Phill…

William Acheff remembers being in Beverly Hills, California, in the early 1970s when a gallery owner told him about a new trend that was starting to percolate within the art scene. The painter’s ears perked up. “The dealer I was going to at the time told me, ‘There’s something new happening in art.’ What he was referring to was what was then called Americana, though it was basically Western art,” Acheff says. “I just remember thinking there was nothing like it, and it was something I had to look into.” Within the next year, Acheff was in Taos, New Mexico, taking it all in, one painting, Pueblo pot, Navajo blanket, beaded moccasin and cottonwood carving at a time. And he never left. Since his arrival to Taos in 1973, Acheff…

The myriad of outdoor activities, massive mountain ranges and gorgeous greenery of Montana make it a natural playground for the Western artist—especially those who delight in depicting the great outdoors. From the Rockies to the Great Plains to Yellowstone and Glacier National Park, there’s endless inspiration abound. And the state itself, nicknamed “the Treasure State,” literally shines with an abundance of natural resources like silver, gold, copper, garnets and sapphires. Undoubtedly fueling and influencing the pull toward Western art felt throughout Montana is the legacy of C.M. Russell, who moved to the state in his youth to work on a sheep ranch and ultimately settled there for the remainder of his life. The city of Great Falls, in the Northern Great Plains, is home to the C.M. Russell Museum, its…

Energy and nuance Kim Wiggins took a master class with Henriette Wyeth at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Wyeth was a neighbor of sorts in Roswell, New Mexico, where both her husband, Peter Hurd, and Wiggins were raised. Wyeth encouraged him to go outside and to paint the ranchlands he lived on and the features of the Southwest landscape. Wiggins’ father was a noted photojournalist and his mother a rodeo cowgirl. They encouraged him in his early interest in sculpting small figures of animals in clay and his move to painting in oils when he was 14. He immersed himself in the landscape, absorbing its energy and its nuances and developed his own version of expressionism to portray what he saw and felt in the landscape. Today he is one…

Well-traveled Don Oelze has lived in a multitude of places, both far and wide, including Washington, Arizona, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and New Hampshire, as well as abroad in New Zealand and Japan, where he lived for decade as a translator and English teacher. So it truly is an endorsement of the West when he, after having lived so many other places, has chosen to live in the West in Clancy, Montana. “It’s exactly where I want to be,” he says. “We’re not too far from Helena, Bozeman, Great Falls and Missoula. It’s a small town, though. We have a post office, but no gas station.” Oelze, pronounced ull-zee, has learned an important truth after traveling the world: “Basically, we’re all the same. I learned to have a passion for people,…

In the upcoming group exhibition at Maxwell Alexander Gallery, Western artists display new paintings with their visions of the landscape, people and animals that populate the dynamic region. Many of the pieces highlight the land on its own, or as part of a larger narrative—regardless, each work shows the beauty of the desert. Included in this new show are paintings by artists Billy Schenck, Teresa Elliott, Glenn Dean, Eric Merrell, Tim Solliday, Eric Bowman and Kim Wiggins. Wiggins’ view of the West is an exaggerated one—curving lines and bold colors—but always based on real-life places and events. In this exhibition is his painting Last Light Along the Llano Quemado, which depicts Northern New Mexico villages that the artists says “still seem to transcend time.” He continues, “As a child my…

This summer, Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, tells the story of contemporary Western art through the exploration of the groups, movements and artists who transformed the subject into what it is today. Into a New West: Contemporary Art from the Booth Museum, an exhibition running through September 1, features around 40 works of art on loan from the Booth Museum of Western Art, with a small selection from the Briscoe’s own collection. Exploring such topics as environmentalism, gender equality and various social commentaries, the exhibition demonstrates a shift from traditional representations of the West to new ideologies and modes of expression. “There’s so much to do with contemporary Western art that hasn’t been done yet,” says Michael Duchemin, president and CEO of Briscoe Western Art Museum, and…

In May the Briscoe Western Art Museum announced the temporary installation of a bronze monument of President Theodore Roosevelt in San Antonio, Texas. The bronze, showing “Teddy” Roosevelt seated on a horse, was created by prominent Western sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor. The work was installed near the historic Menger Hotel pending its permanent installation as part of the Alamo Sculpture Trail, a series of 14 statues that link the Alamo to the Briscoe. The Proctor piece, created from the original 1922 mold, was donated by Texas businessman and advocate of the arts Jack Guenther. “I am pleased to see the Alamo Sculpture Trail near completion with today’s installment of the Teddy Roosevelt statue,” said Guenther at the installation. “These key figures of our city and nation’s history deserve to be…

The Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming. Artists and collectors will once again descend upon the Brinton Museum’s annual Bighorn Rendezvous, which will take place this year on August 3 in Big Horn, Wyoming. The event is a celebration of art and American Indian culture, and will include a quickdraw event from 9 a.m. to noon, followed by a series of performances from American Indian drum and dance groups starting at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. All of the afternoon events are free and open to the public. That evening, starting at 5 p.m., will be the cocktail party and dinner, which will also include the quickdraw art auction. The party and dinner are ticketed events. Artists at this year’s event are Sonja Caywood, Ann Hanson, Gary Huber,…

Many of us grew up on Western movies. We reveled in their romantic plots and the wide-open, majestic landscapes that were completely foreign to many of us. Westerns had a different role in forming the lives of our collectors as well as their interest in collecting art that relates to it. Her father worked for the studios that produced Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger and other fictional heroes, and her mother made sure she experienced all the arts from museums to the theater when she was a girl. “I had some exposure in college,” she says, “but I got my education when we started collecting.” He arrived in the United States from Israel at the age of 13. “I spoke little English,” he relates. “I watched Western movies to learn…

The Santuario de Chimayó is located in a hidden little verdant valley next to a small but at times quite rushing stream near the Sangre de Christo mountains on the high road to Taos about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. The adobe church was built here around 1816—on the exact site where Bernardo Abeyta uncovered a wooden painted cross depicting the Christ of Esquipulas—and is known famously for the holy dirt that is shoveled scoop by scoop out of a far back room of the church, steps away from the hand-painted altar piece and Santeros and even closer to the rows and rows of metal crutches that have been left behind by those healed from the dirt’s restorative powers. The dirt is cold and soft, soothing to the touch,…

For Stephanie Hartshorn, rural architecture is bred in the bone. Generations of her family have lived in Colorado where her earliest ancestors were homesteaders. She says, “I am always looking at things and sensing their history. It’s almost as if I am appreciating it for all its years of service. I’m quietly celebrating its life. As a nod to my previous career in architecture, structural themes often arise in my work. I have always loved the details of design: rhythms and complex beauty in the lines and curves of our manmade and natural worlds.” She builds her barns, their surfaces and their solids and voids with thick application of paint. Barn Cadence literally presents the rhythms of the openings in the barn’s façade—each with its own purpose, each contributing to…

Desert weavings Although much has been written about the sage and sand, the towering mesas, the purple hills in the distance and the monument-like presence of human figures, one of the unsung and sometimes overlooked features of Logan Maxwell Hagege’s paintings is the frequent depiction of Native American weavings. For the California painter, these colorful and intricately designed textiles are an important part of the Southwest. “I’m not interested in the texture so much, but definitely the design. That weaving texture, with the way I paint, would be far too much detail to put into a painting. So instead I try to focus on the light and dark shapes, and how quickly the light and dark change, or how a curve in the blanket will dictate how sharp a transition…

Rocky Mountain West 3,200 square inches. That’s how much real estate is in a 40-by-80-inch painting. Painter Phill Nethercott will have five works that size in a new show opening August 8 at Legacy Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The artist, who lives in the small town of Millville, Utah, will be showing as many as seven new works total at the special “artist focus” show at the gallery’s Jackson Hole location. “We don’t really have a title for the show but since I was born, raised and lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for 50 years it might be titled Memoirs of Jackson Hole. All of the pieces are of locations within or around the Jackson area,” Nethercott says. “Landscapes of the Rocky Mountain West from the close, intimate and…

More than 1,500-squaremiles of wilderness in the Rocky Mountains of Montana make up Glacier National Park, its chiseled mountain peaks and valleys frosted with snow running all the way to the Canadian border. Dashed across the land are alpine forests with more than 700 miles of hiking trails—paradise for the avid adventurer, and for the artist. Every year in late summer, the Hockaday Museum of Art hosts an exhibition honoring the magnificence of Glacier and the Indigenous communities around it. One of the top Western art events across the United States and Canada, A Timeless Legacy: Women Artists of Glacier National Park celebrates the artwork of 23 talented women artists who enjoy capturing the great outdoors, whether through their paintbrushes, charcoals or pencils. Participating artists make up the best of…

On May 13 the Tucson Museum of Art opened the new exhibition Travelogue: Grand Destinations and Personal Journeys featuring 80 works of art dedicated to travel. The show, co-curated by Dr. Julie Sasse, chief curator, and Christine Brindza, senior curator, is meant to entice with imagery of popular and exotic locations from around the world. There will be works of art that show Europe and the Middle East, as well as a strong focus on the American West. The majority of the pieces in the show come straight from the museum’s permanent collection, and when deciding on how to best show the works in a cohesive theme Sasse and Brindza were struck by the many destinations that appeared in the works. “We came across a theme that we thought would…