Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022/ No. 179 i Western Art Collector

John Colter (ca. 1775-1813) was a member of Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the West from 1803 to 1806, when he left the returning expedition to join up with fur traders, eventually becoming the first of what would be called “mountain men.” In 1807 to 1808 he took off on his own on a trek that would take him to the wonders of Yellowstone, the first non-Indian thought to have seen them. His descriptions of erupting geysers and hot springs caused people to refer to the area as “Colter’s Hell.” In 1871, Ferdinand V. Hayden led a government-sponsored survey of Yellowstone that produced reports complete with professional sketches by Thomas Moran (1837-1926) and photographs by William Henry Jackson (1843-1942). Based on that report, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law…

One of the most art-rich streets in the United States is near the center of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where an unassuming road leads up a hill just a short walk from the Santa Fe Plaza. The narrow and dusty street is lined with magnificent homes, some dating back to the 1750s; historic courtyards with tiny doors through adobe walls; and some of Santa Fe’s top galleries highlighting Western, contemporary and historic artwork. The thoroughfare, the iconic Canyon Road, is one of the gems of the Southwest, where artists and collectors have congregated for more than a century. That famous road is now the home to Legacy Gallery’s newest venue, and the significance of that location was not lost on owners Brad and Jinger Richardson. “I told Jinger since we’ve…

It’s easy to draw comparisons between the work of artists and friends Dennis Ziemienski and Billy Schenck—sweeping Southwestern vistas, billowing thunderclouds, the purple and orange hues of the desert and a deep appreciation of the American West. One could also argue that these are where the parallels end. Visitors to Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will have a unique opportunity to decide for themselves when Schenck and Ziemienski participate in a joint show that runs from July 29 to August 13. Ziemienski will exhibit paintings from a new series called Visions of the Southwest that focus on scenes from Northern New Mexico—pueblos that echo the distant mesas, figures on horseback or wagon, a pueblo woman grinding corn while another bakes bread in the background. One departure in…

To honor the 150th birthday of Yellowstone National Park, the first park added to the National Park Service, Gallery Wild will celebrate the park with a group exhibition that opens July 1 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The location of the show is fitting: Jackson Hole is a famous destination for parkgoers using Yellowstone’s south entrance. “One hundred and fifty years ago the United States made one of the best decisions in history when it comes to the natural world by protecting Yellowstone, the first of many parks to come,” says gallery owner and artist Carrie Wild. “To celebrate the 150th anniversary of our parks, we have invited all of our artists to join together for a collaborative show that shares the never-ending beauty, adventure, admiration and magical moments experienced in…

Martha Pettigrew attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on painting and printmaking. For six years she served as scientific illustrator for the Nebraska State Museum. She has been a bronze sculptor since 1993. Pettigrew took up painting again in 2003 after several visits to San Miguel de Allende. Starting with simple street scenes, she quickly added other architectural subjects to here repertoire, including barns, old churches and schoolhouses. She describes her unique and recognizable style as minimalist and precisionist with a little regionalism thrown in. Her non-objective abstract paintings feature bold color field compositions. These may be inspired by natural forms or events, or may start with broad, thoughtfully placed brushstrokes. She works with the positive and negative…

Nearly 45 artists gathered to capture vistas of scenic Kern County, California, in late May for Art 2022, the second annual plein air paint-out hosted by the Tehachapi Arts Commission. This month, from July 22 to 24, the artists return to Tehachapi, California, to exhibit the finished works in a curated show and sale. After the initial paint-out, the artists retreated to their studios where they transformed their plein air quick-studies into finished works. Oil painter Debra Holladay, whose work Tehachapi Oaks will be in the show, has been painting in the region for several years and is inspired by its “rolling, velvety hills; oak trees; cattle and very particular shade of green,” not to mention painting alongside cattle, horses, donkeys and other wildlife. Holladay explains that she goes out…

Western art returns to the auction block in Reno, Nevada, on July 23 during the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. The hugely successful auction, which has achieved more than $300 million in sales over the last 15 years, will once again offer artwork from many genres within Western art—from sporting and wildlife art to cowboys and cattle to bronzes big and small. “What’s really exciting for us is that the market is as strong now as it’s been in 10 years. We watch a lot of sales, including the recent spring sales, and we’re seeing growth everywhere, not just at our own sale,” says Mike Overby, one of the partners of the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. “It’s remarkable because the Western market seems largely insulated from macro events happening in the…

When Nedra Matteucci Galleries opened its doors in 1972, it was already destined for distinction. After all, its first owner was Forrest Fenn, the eccentric art dealer who many decades later became famous for inspiring thousands to embark upon a quest to find his hidden treasure. Comprised of several historic buildings, situated on nearly two acres enclosed with earthy, stone and adobe walls, it was not long before the picturesque compound became a popular destination for art lovers and collectors. Its reputation was further entrenched by its early exhibitions of renowned painters of the Southwest including Nicolai Fechin, Eric Sloane, Freemont Ellis and Joseph Henry Sharp. Showcasing these artists ignited a renewed interest in the Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, colonies of the early 20th century which were essential…

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the country’s first national park, Yellowstone, in 1872. Today there are more than 400 national sites administered by the National Park Service of which 63 are official national parks. The remainder are national historic sites, national monuments, national seashores and the like. Artists have been inspired by national parks over the past 150 years. In fact, it was paintings by Thomas Moran (1837-1926) and photographs by William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) that were instrumental in moving Congress to pass the Yellowstone National Park Act, which was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The National Park Service was founded in 1916 to oversee the growing number of parks and sites. The St. George Museum of Art in St. George, Utah, celebrated the centennial of the…

Brett Allen Johnson is molded by the Southwest. Its deserts, canyons, mountain ranges and stunning skies offer a palette of colors and earthly geometry found in no other region of the world. Looking upon the landscapes in places like Utah or Arizona, they share the unmistakable aesthetic of the Southwest—and when viewing the artwork of Brett Allen Johnson, the paintings are unmistakably Johnson. The artist brings a brand new group of oils to an upcoming solo show at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Los Angeles, running July 16 to August 6. Raised in the small town of American Fork, Utah, at the foot of Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Range, Johnson has carved his own path in Western art, building his style of defined forms and sharp, vivid color. “My practice…

Dan Young writes, “Growing up in Colorado, how can you not be inspired by the mountains, the rivers? Nowadays, I’ll go out and look for an idea, a shape, an emotion. I used to go out and look for a pretty picture, but now I go out and look for what interests me—a shadow dancing across snow, light reflecting off a landscape, an unexpected shape that changes the composition—that’s what challenges me to create in my own style.” Among the paintings in the exhibition Dan Young: Mountain Majesty July 9 through July 19 at Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colorado, is the stunning Evening Hot Streak. It captures a fleeting moment of high color and contrast along the Colorado River close to Young’s studio. He explains, “After many failures painting…

Steeped in the vibrant colors of his native New Mexico and rendered with the uninhibited imagination of a child, Ed Sandoval’s paintings are as recognizable as the artist himself, who has been known to ride his Arabian horse, Patron, through Taos Plaza dressed as Zorro with a mask, cape and sword. Tapping into his own boyhood memories growing up on a small ranch, Sandoval has become known for scenes depicting rural Southwest life and culture within enchanted landscapes under dynamic desert skies. Most of his paintings are inspired by vistas close to home, but his most recent work—which will be shown in his upcoming show, Desert Vistas—draws from road trips through southern New Mexico in the early part of the year, prompting paintings of the Gila Cliff Dwellings and the…

The ways one could get killed in Yellowstone are quite exotic: gored by a bison, eaten by wolves, boiled alive in a mineral bath, shot into the sky by a geyser, falling off treacherous cliffs and crushed by a boulder. Thus, when John Colter laid eyes on the danger in the park, it was soon dubbed Colter’s Hell. (Even more surprising is these are still ways to meet your end in the present-day park.) And yet, as dangerous as it all was (and is), the views were (and are) spectacular. The beauty of Yellowstone is now being celebrated in the exhibition Colter’s Hell: Yellowstone National Park at 150 now open at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. “Yellowstone is one of the most spectacular places on…

The story goes that in 1897, a traveling passenger agent of the Union Pacific Railroad made a suggestion to the editor of the Cheyenne Daily Sun-Leader that the area should host a festival similar to Colorado’s infamous Potato Day event. From that mere suggestion spawned the Cheyenne Frontier Days festival, celebrating in the rich, Western history of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, area and creating quite the robust legacy. Now in its 126th year, this highly anticipated event boasts a bevy of activities including what has grown to be the festival highlight, the world’s largest outdoor rodeo. Other activities include pancake breakfasts, parades of antique carriages and automobiles, top-tier musical entertainment and, of course, the iconic Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show & Sale. To further celebrate in the “American Western Legacy,”…

June JUNE 25-NOVEMBER 13 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART Above the Clouds: Art of the Alpine Jackson, WY – (307) 733-5771 www.wildlifeart.org THROUGH JUNE 27 MANITOU GALLERIES Amy Lay Santa, Fe, NM – (505) 986-0440 www.manitougalleries.com July JULY 2022 BROADMOOR GALLERIES Broadmoor Art Experience Colorado Springs, CO – (719) 577-5744 www.broadmoorgalleries.com JULY 1-3 LEGACY GALLERY Grand Opening Santa Fe, NM – (480) 945-1113 www.legacygallery.com JULY 1-5 GALLERY WILD National Park Show Jackson, WY – (307) 203-2322 www.gallerywild.com JULY 1-16 THE WILSON PLAZA Big Sky Art Auction Big Sky, MT www.bigskyartauction.com JULY 1-30 MANITOU GALLERIES The Western Edge: David Jonason and Rick Terry Santa Fe, NM – (505) 986-0440 www.manitougalleries.com JULY 1-31 CLAGGETT/REY GALLERY Josh Elliott: Grandeur Edwards, CO – (970) 476-9350 www.claggettrey.com JULY 3-NOVEMBER 6 DENVER ART MUSEUM Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer…

Painting has its own challenges, including all the usual ones: color and paint, composition and design, and storytelling and themes. So when an artist makes a work that is larger than normal, they are willingly accepting all those challenges, but also injecting new and profoundly different ones into their studio. For painters, the questions they find themselves asking must seem preposterous at first: Will the large canvas fit into the studio? Will my easel hold it? Will I be able to reach the top? Do I need to buy a ladder? How much is this frame going to cost? How will I ship it? Wait, is there an extra zero on that shipping invoice? Hey Siri, can you show me driving directions to the gallery? Hello, U-Haul, how much is…

For centuries, the modern masters like Albert Bierstadt, John Clymer and Thomas Moran found inspiration in the spellbinding wilderness of places like Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. They’ve seen the beauty of the Great Plains, and they’ve been awed by the majesty of the Rockies and the Big Horn Mountains. The region of Wyoming is one as steeped in nature as it is in Western art and culture, and the wild inspiration the land provides rings true with artists to this day. Deep in the state’s bones is the history of the trappers and traders of the Old West, and the enduring culture of Native American tribes like the Arapaho, Shoshone, Lakota and Crow. The 10th largest state in the country by area, yet the least populous,…

Viewers of The Western Edge show, openingJuly 1 at Manitou Galleries, will see many similarities between the works of show artist’s David Jonason and Rick Terry. While they work in different mediums—Terry a sculptor and Jonason a painter— “both artists have a geometric quality about their work,” says Manitou Galleries. “Bringing them together highlights a more contemporary perspective of the American West.” Both artists also happen to be modernists who focus on traditional imagery and subject matter of the West. Terry, now based in Montana, lived many years in the Southwest. His piece Sun and Mesa combines three elements of the Southwest that have left an impression on him: “The sun, the land and the Native people,” he notes. Terry will have approximately 14 bronze sculptures for the show, ranging…

Everyone finds the West in their own unique way. For Idaho-based painter Aaron Hazel, his route into Western art took him through pet portraits, paintings of celebrities and the NFL, where he was painting sports scenes of the athletes, and routinely for the athletes who were his collectors. At one point, the young artist started taking design courses in hopes of going into advertising. Fate had other plans. In 2009, he had a lucky encounter with landscape painter Robert Moore. “My uncle did his frames for him, so my uncle was nice enough to barter some frame work for one of Robert’s workshops, which he then gave to me,” Hazel remembers. “That’s how it all started for me. I was a fan of his work, which was great when he…

Copley Fine Art Auctions will present the popular Sporting Sale on July 14 and 15, during which the auction house will offer a diverse mixture of sporting and Western art in Hingham, Massachusetts. The annual sale is known for sporting art in all its forms, but pays special attention to bird decoys, a specialty at the auction house. This year’s sale will feature a stunning example, the Harmon Hollow Nantucket Curlew, a 16-inch-long decoy from around 1850. The decoy, which straddles both sporting art and Americana, is estimated at $150,000 to $250,000. In the area of paintings and bronzes, the sale will present a number of exceptional pieces. “In addition to the important estates and private collections, several notable individual works have been consigned to this sale. Aiden Lassell Ripley’s…