Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2020/ No. 155 i Western Art Collector

Oh how things change. This entire pandemic began with us receiving email after email from galleries, fairs and auctions about events being cancelled or postponed. And not just any events. Some of our favorites. The kind where we attend each year to catch up with all our friends, collectors and artists to find out what’s happening in their world. It felt odd not attending these events and it made us appreciate them even more. God knows, once this is all over, our schedules will be busier than ever, and this is music to our ears! And now, the emails we are getting are reading in the exact opposite way. They shine with glimmers of hope as they announce galleries reopening and being filled with new works created by artists during…

When life gave the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum lemons—museum closures around the country for months—the marketing team was ready to make some lemonade with the help of the museum’s head security guard. Beginning March 17, with the Oklahoma City museum closed to the public, Tim Tiller, the director of security and operations services, started using social media to document his rounds through the empty galleries. His observations, all done in a folksy wholesomeness, were then posted on “the Twitter, the Facebook, and the Instagram.” Viewers were treated to shots within the museum, and also of glimpses of someone learning social media on the fly. “Hashtag John Wayne. Lucas, my grandson, told me to use hashtags,” he wrote of a True Grit costume. A few days later, a revelation:…

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Christopher Cardozo’s 2015 book Edward S. Curtis: One Hundred Masterworks, published by DelMonico Books / Prestel. Cardozo is a leading expert on Curtis and the publisher of a magnificent new republication of Curtis’ magnum opus, The North American Indian. Learn more about the republication at www.edwardcurtis.com. Edward S. Curtis is well known as a maker of powerful, evocative images of Native Americans. What is less well known is that he was also a gifted printmaker, possessing great technical ingenuity and virtuosity. Although his photogravures have frequently been reproduced for publication, few people have seen his original “master prints”—the fine art prints he made for exhibition or sale. His master prints comprise only one to two percent of his extant body of work. The…

An exhibition of Roseta Santiago’s latest paintings at Santa Fe’s Blue Rain Gallery is called Recuerdo. The Spanish word means “memory.” The exhibition is a recollection of the past 20 years from the time she moved to Santa Fe, bought a house, built a studio and, as she says, “locked myself in for six months, did my market studies and taught myself to oil paint.” With a career in advertising and design behind her, she was ready for a new adventure. Her early paintings were of Pueblo pots, their forms highlighted against dark backgrounds. In her studio she was surrounded by Native and Asian pottery and artifacts. She commented, “You can put your hand in the pots and feel the fingerprints of the potter. The presence of the maker is…

Paul Rhymer’s father was a taxidermist at the Smithsonian Institution. His mother, a painter, was a summer employee at the Smithsonian where she and her husband met. Their son followed in their footsteps and was a taxidermist and model maker at the institution’s National Museum of Natural History for 25 years. “All I wanted to do is make stuff for a living,” he says. “I learned taxidermy from my father and my mom took me to art exhibitions in Washington. When I started sculpting in the 1990s, I wanted it to be accurate but I didn’t want it to look like taxidermy. I saw Bart Walter’s bronze sculptures of chimps. They had life but an impressionistic feel.” Rhymer knows animals from the inside out. He is also an avid birder…

There are 62 parks in the National Park Service, and eventually Jennifer Johnson is going to visit all of them. But what comes after that is what really thrills her—painting them. The Colorado-based artist stumbled into the niche she’s created for herself. Three years ago she was in Great Falls, Montana, to show her work during Western Art Week. Before she could even finish setting up her booth, collectors were asking about a piece she had brought. “I could have sold that painting 20 times over. I mean, I wasn’t even done setting up yet and people were trying to buy it,” she says. “The idea was based around old illustrations for the parks. Illustrators were hired in the 1930s to promote the parks, and they did these amazing works…

July 1 Heritage Auctions’ American Art Auction Dallas, TX – (877) 437-4824 July 25 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction Reno, NV – (208) 772-9009 August 1-September 13 Prix de West Oklahoma City, OK – (405) 478-2250 September 9-20 Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival Jackson, WY – (307) 733-3316 September 9-October 11 Western Visions Jackson, WY – (307) 733-5771 September 10-12 The Russell Great Falls, MT – (406) 727-8787 September 10-12 Out West Art Show Great Falls, MT – (406) 590-1961 September 11-October 11 Quest for the West Indianapolis, IN – (317) 636-8119 September 18-19 Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale Cody, WY – (888) 598-8119 November 6-7 Cowboy Artists of America 55th Annual Sale & Exhibition Fort Worth, TX November 13 Small Works, Great Wonders Oklahoma City, OK – (405) 478-2250…

Now in its 15th year, Tammy Christel’s hit online space, Jackson Hole Art Blog, is continuing to track the art market in a Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Christel, who was a former tour guide around Jackson, says her guiding principle is exposing people to art. “I’ve always been very comfortable with art, but when I was giving tours I would run across people who were standing outside a gallery looking in through the windows, and you could see they were debating with themselves whether to go in or not. And they usually didn’t go in,” Christel says. “The art world can be very intimidating, so my goal has been to expose people to art and show them that everyone is welcome in the galleries.” Before starting the blog, where she regularly…

The poetic naturalist and writer John Muir wrote, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” Michael Cassidy has a peculiar affinity for places of beauty. He immediately detects the spirit of a place and that of the people who live there and who immerse themselves in nature. Growing up in Southern California he surfed and rode horseback. He went to art school and worked in commercial illustration for many years. He spent “25 years tromping the South Pacific” becoming a well-known painter of the earthly paradise of the islands, the people and, especially, the surfers. He has since turned his attention to the Old West and its people, a different kind of…

Daniel Parker Bronze www.parkerbronze.com Legacy Gallery 7178 Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 (480) 945-1113, www.legacygallery.com Michael Hamby Agent, Pam Eggemeyer, (303) 949-6457 Museum of Western Art 1550 Bandera Highway, Kerrville, TX 78028 (830) 896-2553, www.museumofwesternart.com Raymond Gibby (479) 586-7645, gibbybronze@gmail.com www.gibbybronze.com Trailside Galleries 130 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY 83001 (307) 733-3186, (480) 945-7751 www.trailsidegalleries.com…

Darcie Peet www.darciepeet.com Dawn Sutherland Flagstaff, AZ, (928) 593-0604 dawn@dawnsutherlandfineart.com www.dawnsutherlandfineart.com Elizabeth Dryden Fine Art (214) 929-0727, elizabeth@elizabethdryden.com www.elizabethdryden.com Grand Canyon Celebration of Art (480) 277-0458, kduley@grandcanhyon.org www.grandcanyon.org/coa Trailside Galleries 130 E. Broadway, Jackson Hole, WY 83001 (480) 945-7751, info@trailsidegalleries.com, www.trailsidegalleries.com Wild Horse Gallery 802 Lincoln Avenue, Steamboat Springs, CO 80477, (970) 819-2850, shirley@wildhorsegallery.com www.wildhorsegallery.com William G. Smith (208) 932-3246, wgsmith@williamgsmith.com www.williamgsmithart.com…

When most people view the artwork of United Kingdom-based artist John Bye, oftentimes they’ll mistake them for photographs. The self-taught painter creates ultra lifelike scenes that capture the West_ historic and modern cowboys, wildlife, dusty landscapes, mountains, valleys and gorges. “Although most people find my work to be hyper realistic, it is easy to see it as a painting when you get up close,” says Bye. “Sometimes the paintings are very close to the historical or contemporary references and other times I use my ‘creative license’ to change a scene to the way I envision it, perhaps adding cloud formations or fog or other features that were not there but create an interesting, dramatic or beautiful composition that portrays the spirit of the scene I want to portray.” Artists like…