Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 / No. 164 i Western Art Collector

Welcome to April! Western Art Collector is very happy to celebrate the opening of art destinations. States across the country are coming out of the crisis and moving up the ladder to yellow and green classifications, and vaccines are being distributed as effectively as possible. All of this leads to enjoying live art events and shows safely. We have an amazing State of the Art: Texas this month. The resilience of the state shows strong with more than 10 pages of artwork related to the Lone Star State. The great news coming out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is they are finally being classified under the yellow designation for Covid-19. This means travel is opening strong again and galleries are able to run at 33 percent capacity for their shows.…

Through March 19 C.M. Russell Museum Sealed-Bid Sale Great Falls, MT – (406) 727-8787 Through March 20 Montana Masters Great Falls, MT – (406) 360-1629 Through March 20 Montana Miniatures Great Falls, MT – (406) 360-1629 March 19-20 March in Montana Great Falls, MT – (208) 664-2091 March 26-27 Briscoe Museum’s Night of Artists San Antonio, TX – (210) 299-4499 March 28-September 5 Cowgirl Up! Art from the Other Half of the West Wickenburg, AZ – (928) 684-2272 April 9-10 Scottsdale Art Auction Scottsdale, AZ – (480) 945-0225 May 2021 (Date TBA) Sotheby’s American Art Auction New York, NY – (212) 606-7000 May 2021 (Date TBA) Bonhams’ American Art Auction New York, NY - (212) 710-1307 June 25-26 Prix de West Oklahoma City, OK – (405) 478-2250 June 25-27 Brian…

The Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale comes packaged as a combo with the National Western Stock Show every year in Denver. But with the pandemic still in full force this past winter, the National Western Stock Show was canceled, which left the Coors show locked out in the cold. So the show organizers improvised. Rather than cancel the show altogether, Coors switched to a virtual format and rallied its artists and collectors together in a difficult year. The result was a $516,000 sale. It was down from $859,000 the year before, but organizers were pleased with the sales, response and virtual turnout. The show, which opened in December, ran through January 31. Proceeds from the sale supported the National Western Scholarship Trust. “We’ve sought creative ways to bring our…

Firefighters, doctors, nurses, mail carriers and other essential workers are highlighted in a new online exhibition at the National Museum of American Illustration. “While these times are unprecedented, the Golden Age Illustrators have portrayed many of these critical professions in magazine covers and advertisements. The professions of doctors, firemen, police officers, postal workers, and many more have played critical roles in society throughout the 20th century and continue to prove themselves invaluable today,” the museum notes. “We are beyond grateful for the continuous hard work and courage each essential worker puts forward every day to keep all safe.” Artist in the exhibition include Norman Rockwell, John Falter, Stevan Dohanos and others. Many of the works relate to the period around World War II, but have a relevance to what is…

The Wort family realized a dream when they opened the Wort Hotel in Jackson, Wyoming, in 1941. After ups and downs and a devastating fire, it is flourishing again and boasts an American Automobile Association five-diamond rating. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Bill Baxter runs Holston Gases, a family business that manufacturers industrial and medical gases in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has also served as the commissioner of economic and community development in Tennessee and as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors. He and his family first visited Jackson in 1994, he says, and fell in love with the place. “We were typical tourists. We came to Jackson to hike, climb and to ski. I grew up in East Tennessee in the…

Den Schofield 501 Peak Drive, Riverton, WY 82591, (307) 463-2207, (307) 240-1673 www.denschofield.com J Watson Fine Art (661) 476-7558 jwatsonfineart@yahoo.com www.jwatsonfineart.com Kenneth Ferguson Fine Art (262) 374-2984 www.kennethfergusonfineart.com Manitou Galleries 123 W. Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501 (505) 986.0440 www.manitougalleries.com Maxwell Alexander Gallery 406 W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90015, (213) 275-1060, www.maxwellalexandergallery.com Sherry Blanchard Stuart 7077 E. Main Street, Suite 9, Scottsdale, AZ 85251, (602) 738-4941 art@sherryblanchardstuart.com www.sherryblanchardstuart.com The Plainsmen Gallery 2141 Main Street, Suite H, Dunedin, FL 34698, (727) 734-8200 www.plainsmen.com Scottsdale Art Auction 7176 Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 (480) 945-0225, www.scottsdaleartauction.com Tim Joyner 276 South Crest Avenue, Hamilton, MT 59840, (406) 360-2391 jentimjoyner@msn.com www.timjoynerart.com…

SHOW LOCATION: SCOTTSDALE, AZ Most artists paint what they know, but painter David Frederick Riley works a bit backwards. “I use painting to learn about things I don’t know…it’s my reason to investigate new things,” Riley explains. This is true of his upcoming show of new works titled Blowin with the Wind, depicting animals that are commonly seen in Arizona, in honor of the hosting gallery, Altamira Fine Art, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Upon moving to Midway, Utah, from Michigan 15 years ago, Riley uncovered a landscape and way of life he had never before experienced. “I started doing Western and wildlife work about five years ago after being exposed to living out West and seeing so many different animals,” Riley explains. “I started painting animals and animal portraits, and used…

There are a few ranches where preservation of our heritage is important. Where they still take the wagon out. Where cowboying is still done the traditional way, by “dragging calves to the fire.” Where an effort is made to keep the Star Mill working, not because it is the best or the easiest way to draw water but because it is part of history. Too soon, the sun will set on “the last Star Mill,” and not long after that, the last cowboy. A way of life will end. Those words were written almost 20 years ago by Gordon Snidow and published in his 2002 book Gordon Snidow, My Story, which documented his exhibitions at the Hubbard Museum and the Smithsonian. Today, Snidow, at 85 times around the sun, still…

The Art of Rodeo features the works of three Wyoming artists: award-winning sculptor and former bull and bronc rider Chris Navarro; Western painter and former competitive bull rider Brandon Bailey; and photographer Randy Wagner, who captures scenes of the iconic Cheyenne Frontier Days and designed the event’s groundbreaking photo pit, in which a photo lens is set inches above the ground allowing for phenomenal action shots. The Art of Rodeo is both a traveling art show of the trio’s individual works, as well as a hardbound book that was released in June 2020, spanning 272 pages and more than 600 images. The show is currently being held at the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona, through April 25. Included in the exhibition is Navarro’s smaller-scale Fire in the Rein, as well…

Scottsdale Art Auction kicks off its annual sale on April 9 with the first of two sessions of Western art from many categories—from landscapes and wildlife to sporting art and cowboy images. The auction house has typically held both sessions in one day, but for the 2021 sale it has been split across April 9 and 10, which will open up the sale and make it more accessible to bidders. The live auction will have in-person bidding, as well as a full array of online, telephone and absentee bidding for those who are not yet traveling. And, as is the case in many of the auction house’s first-session sales, many lots will have no reserve, which could create some bidding opportunities. “We’re always happy with the variety of work we…

For months we’ve heard one recurring theme from galleries, artists and auction houses: the market dipped a little at the start of the pandemic, but it stabilized and, in many areas, it’s now soaring. “We expected the floor to drop out from under us last summer, but it never did,” one insider told us. As shutdowns and lockdowns lingered throughout the country, many artists were telling us they were having the best years of their career. Art was selling, shows were finding a way to open virtually, bidders were logging in for online sales and Western art was finding its way into collectors’ homes. The Western art market is resilient! So here we are in April, on the edge of what is sure to be an exciting shift into summer…

The Denver Art Museum has acquired a work by California impressionist William Wendt, the German-born, self-taught artist who was one of the most respected landscape painters working on the West Coast in the 20th century. The work, an oil from 1926 titled The Soil, features a gorgeous vista of a low-lying valley with farmlands and clusters of trees. Rising up out of the background is an imposing mountain that stretches into the clouds. The work is a quintessential Wendt painting. “The Soil is a wonderful representation of his oeuvre, with its bright swaths of color depicting a fertile valley in the San Luis Obispo County of California,” according to the museum. “The painting was acquired through the generous support of Robert and Wendy Kaufman with funds from the Harry I.…

Now open at the BYU Art Museum in Provo, Utah, is Far Out: The West Re-Seen, Photography of Victoria Sambunaris. The exhibition features photos taken by Sambunaris in Utah and other Western states. The photographer uses a wooden field camera to capture the landscape, and she does not shy away from the human effects on nature. “It is the anomalies of an ordinary landscape that have become the locus of my work: massive warehousing, infinite distribution facilities and systematized shipping terminals,” she explains. She exposes the relationship humans have with the landscape, and in doing so brings up thought-provoking questions of environmental stewardship, sustainability and the effects of industrialization. The exhibition continues through May 1. For more information about the exhibition visit moa.byu.edu.…

Grant Redden’s roots in the West run deep. One ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War. Another was a scout for the Prophet Joseph Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father was the foreman of a ranch with 21,000 head of sheep and later had his own ranch with 5,000 ewes and 300 cows. His mother was born in a log cabin and rode a horse to school in a one-room schoolhouse. Grant worked on the ranch, but he always had a sketchbook with him. He went to college, earned a degree in agricultural economics, and worked as a real estate appraiser for 10 years, because he was told and believed he couldn’t make a living as an artist. “Making art is something inside you,” he…

SHOW LOCATION: RENO, NV When painter Kes Woodward ventured North into Alaska in 1977, he didn’t think of it as fleeing the “lower 48” states, but as the beginning of a grand new adventure. “I really think that Alaska is to the West what the West was to the East in the late-19th and early-20th centuries—it’s almost a fantasy land of wilderness, of frontier, of self-reliance,” Woodward says. “It really is magical.” Woodward found himself in Alaska—it’s nickname: the Last Frontier—after graduate school, when he took a job as a curator at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, the state’s capital. “I fell in love because it was the kind of place where everyone wakes up in the morning and thinks they can remake the world because anything and everything…

Work and play, story and cinema, landscape and legends—they all layer together to shape our view of the American West. Both the real and romanticized West is the center of Maura Allen’s work. Each piece begins on location with the artist looking directly into the sun. With details obscured, Allen looks for strong, iconic silhouettes. As a black-and-white photographer for 40-plus years, she’s drawn to shape, gesture and graphic forms. In her studio in Prescott, Arizona, she creates original mixed media pieces on wood, glass and steel. “My work has a distinct, contemporary feel, but also a sense the past is present,” she says. Allen studied Latin/classical studies at Stanford University, learning how iconic figures, myth and moments define a culture. “With ranchers and wranglers as my trusted guides, I…

Beginning in 1909, Brigham Young University Museum of Art began their now vast collection of European and American art, with a significant focus on art of the West. To honor and showcase the brilliance of such works, the museum has completed a deep dive into their private collection to bring the public Treasures from the Collection, a diverse exhibition with featured works that encompass time, location, theme and style. With a collection that begins in the 17th century, the museum will not only display Western pieces but American coastal and Asian artworks, illustrating the museum’s history and development. “As a curator, I’m always diving into the collection and I’m always finding new gems,” says museum curator Ashlee Whitaker. “We have limited wall space and we have a lot in our…

Johanna M. Blume Curator of Western Art, History and Culture Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art Indianapolis, IN, (317) 636-9378 www.eiteljorg.org What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why? I’m not really doing much traveling these days, but I’ve been so impressed with how many museums have responded to the pandemic by increasing their virtual offerings. In particular, I’m excited to see what our peer institutions, with shows similar to our Quest for the West Art Show and Sale, do with their virtual or hybrid virtual/in-person shows. It’s been a really difficult year for museums and galleries, but I hope one thing we’ve learned is how technology helps increase accessibility. What are you reading? I’m digging into Seeing…

In response to prolonged closures and reduced hours due to the pandemic, Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West has extended the dates of some of its biggest exhibitions, including Maynard Dixon’s American West and By Beauty Obsessed: Gilbert Waldman Collects the West. The Dixon exhibit, hailed as one of the most important shows ever exhibited for the artist, will now run through August 2. By Beauty Obsessed will now run through August 23, which should give visitors more time to see Waldman’s exquisite collection of Western art. The collector died in 2020, and the exhibition serves as a memorial to his interest in the West. For more information, visit www.scottsdalemuseumwest.org.…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND GET ALL 18 MAGAZINES EVERY YEAR 12 Issues (Monthly) Western Art Collector PLUS 6 Issues of (Bimonthly) Native American Art Our Sister Publication Launched in January 2016 Discover New Art Available For Sale The art of major deceased and contemporary Western artists is in demand, and if you’re serious about acquiring new works, you need to know when they become available. When you subscribe to Western Art Collector magazine you’ll be the first to know about new works because each month we’ll email you the link to the latest issue online. You’ll have instant access to the latest issue when it is published. You’ll see art coming available for sale before the shows even open. Coast-To-Coast Coverage See new art being created by major Western artists coast…

With a view to rounding out her biography of Charlie Russell, Nancy sometimes called on his friends for added perspectives about her husband. W.S. Hart, an accomplished actor and silent film cowboy star was just such a special soulmate, as the partial quotation of Hart’s letter (dated January 22, 1929) to Nancy shown below reveals: Dear Nancy: It’s a great task to try and set down my memory of Charlie Russell, one of the greatest men that ever pulled on a pair of cowhide boots. As you know I first met Charlie at your home [while playing a one night stand] in Great Falls, Montana, the early part of January 1902… I knew many illustrators and painters in New York and the impression Charlie made upon me was so great…

GALLERY LOCATION: DUNEDIN, FL The Plainsmen Gallery in Dunedin, Florida, is looking forward to hosting its annual Wildlife & Western Visions from April 24 to May 24. The show will be an in-person event, allowing collectors the chance to view approximately 75 works of art by 21 esteemed artists. The pieces will range from sculpture to paintings in traditional and contemporary styles, with artwork from Guy Combes, Jim Eppler, Randy Galloway, Peter Gerbert, Grant Hacking, Deborah LaFogg, Chris Navarro, Grant Redden and Suzie Seerey-Lester, being among the highlights. John Coleman’s sculpture Maiden from Second Mesa “represents an unmarried girl with a traditional squash blossom whorl hairdo of the Hopi tribe,” says Coleman. “Squash blossoms are considered a fertility symbol in Hopi culture.” Apache Defiance, by David Yorke, depicts a Chiriachua Apache…

Painter Barbara Meikle has her mind on Arizona, which has inspired much of her newest work, including pieces featuring wild horses. “Last January I photographed the Salt River horses, wild horses that roam the river south of Phoenix, Arizona,” Meikle says. “I’ve been captivated by the horses, the family groups that care for each other, the reflection and action in the water by these beautiful animals…the well has not run dry yet on these inspiring creatures, so lots more paintings are in the works!” She also has new shows set for Arizona, including new works available in Desert Caballeros Western Art Museum’s Cowgirl Up! Art From the Other Half of the West in Wickenburg. The show, which opens March 27 and runs through July 27, features many of the top women…

Late in Henry Hathaway’s 1969 version of True Grit—some would say the only version of the famous Western—John Wayne’s U.S. Marshall character, Rooster Cogburn, rides out into a meadow to confront a line of outlaws. He bites down on the reins, draws a revolver and chambers a round into his 1892 Winchester rifle by doing an elegant flip maneuver using a larger-than-normal lever loop modified for this very purpose. It’s classic Wayne, in one of the most iconic scenes in all of Westerns. So when the exact Winchester used by Wayne in True Grit and its sequel, Rooster Cogburn, sold at the Mesa Old West Sale on January 23, show owner Brian Lebel was asked if the new owners had likely tried the flip after their purchsae. “Oh, I bet they…