Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023/No. 196 i Western Art Collector

To all our fellow artists, collectors and friends, Lisa and I have sold our home of 35 years and we have decided to retire from all major shows. We are both in excellent health and I have kept a French easel and will continue to paint for my pleasure. I have been painting for over 50 years and have had a blast! My work is in museums and collections across the country and I am very thankful to everyone who has supported us. We are relocating to the North Central Mexico area that has long been our favorite subject and destination. We are very excited about this new adventure! We wish each of you health and happiness. Vaya Con Dios,…

A now-open exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts explores landscape photography in Utah. In September, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City opened the exhibition Shaping Landscapes: 150 Years of Photography in Utah, which will feature imagery that shows how land in the West has been used in the past and still today. “The history of photography in the United States is deeply tied to the American West. From 19th-century survey expeditions to 21st-century environmental movements, Western landscapes are activated as some of the most prominent subjects in American photographic history,” the Utah museum notes. “This exhibition traces 150 years of Utah landscape photography from the UMFA’s expansive collection. The artworks offer insight into how generations of photographers have used this technology to construct an…

An observer on his first trail ride was watching cowboys riding in the distance through rough country searching for bawling calves. During the occasional stillness of the pre-dawn round-up, several of the riders would pick at the leather pockets high up on their chaps. As the cowboys rode closer, it was obvious what was in those pockets: their smartphones. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone watching because of course they had cellphones—to communicate with their spouses or children, for potential emergencies or maybe just browsing Instagram during the slowness of the morning. But who’s painting that more authentic version of the West, the version with the cowboys scrolling through their news feed or poking out text messages? Much of traditional Western art is about filtering out the modern…

“I started out in folk art,” Henry Bauer explains. “In the South, we call them self-taught artists. A friend got me into it, but it’s not really me. I got bored with it. Today when people come to our home and see the collection of Western and Native art, they say, ‘This is a house where the art reflects the people who live here.’ “My wife, Mary Carole Cooney, brought back a Western serigraph from a business trip to Santa Fe. I liked the colors. I had the idea that I could start collecting this kind of art and not be satisfied only with serigraphs. As I became more successful, I was able to buy more expensive pieces. I’ve done it because I enjoy it, and it reminds me of places…

Wisps of snow curl off Rocky Mountain peaks in Jim Bagley’s painting Near Fairplay. The eye first sees white, snow-covered mountains and prairie foreground, greenish brown forest and sinuous blue river. Then it notices the cool blues of mountain, forest and fence post shadows. Bagley has captured the majestic serenity of the winter scene and evokes a feeling of our actually being there. He says, “My paintings are records of the places I have been. I try to go ‘back there’ in my mind when I paint these places later.” His love of the outdoors began when he was growing up in Oregon, hunting and fishing with his father, and spending time sketching and drawing. He had thought of a career in fish and game management, but after years in…

Every December, Claggett/Rey Gallery hosts an annual group show to celebrate the broad range of talent in the artists they represent. The exhibition will feature new works in bronze, oil, pastel, acrylic as well as jewelry and handcrafted wood in the form of desks and lamps. Midway through the exhibition, on December 29, the gallery will host its annual gala from 5 to 8 p.m. The popular event brings together artists and collectors in a holiday celebration featuring wine from Napa Valley’s Silver Oak winery. Sculptor Jane DeDecker has been participating in the show for almost 25 years and this December is no exception. “The Vail Valley is a magical place in the winter and especially for the holidays,” says DeDecker. “Claggett/Rey’s collectors come to experience this grandeur and it…

Now open at the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, is Steuben Glass: Stories Engraved in Crystal, which will be on view through July 6, 2024. The exhibition will highlight Steuben Glass, which was founded by Frederick Carter in 1903. The company was known for its variety of colors prior to the Great Depression, which would threaten the company’s existence in the early 1930s. “A restructuring of Steuben Glass saved the company. Steuben made a dramatic shift in its production and aesthetics in the 1930s. It pivoted to make works only of clear crystal. The new president, Arthur A. Houghton Jr., brought architects and artists into the firm. They brought an emphasis on beautifully designed forms. Their work was sophisticated and modern, yet simple,” the museum notes. “They also…

Once upon a time, three wildlife artists were brought together by their shared “itch to be out in nature.” What began as a passing friendship—they were commonly placed next to one another at shows over the years—became a unique partnership that motivates and inspires them along their individual painting journeys. This trio, consisting of Ray Brown, Dustin Van Wechel and Mark Kelso, would regularly travel together to gather reference materials for paintings and drawings, to enjoy the one another’s company and to simply go “traipsing through the wilderness,” says Brown. “Ray and I first met at an art show way back in 2006—I met Mark a little earlier in 2004 at a different art show—but in 2007, I was placed right next to Ray at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in…

NIZHONI RANCH GALLERY www.navajorug.com Sonoita, Arizona, (520) 455-5020 Nizhoni Ranch Gallery, located in Sonoita, Arizona, between Tucson and Tombstone, is well known for the Navajo Churro Collection of fine, award-winning, contemporary Navajo weavings. The gallery provides a beautiful setting for the display of these beautiful works of art by talented Navajo weavers of today and yesterday. Seen here are two impeccable rugs available for purchase. The first is Optical Design by master weaver Elsie Bia, who won first place at the 2022 Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial. The weaving measures 38 by 61 inches. The second is JB Moore’s Crystal Navajo Rug, circa 1915 to 1920, mint condition. It measures at 58 by 108 inches, and is patterned after JB Moore Crystal Plate XXIII. WILLIAM HASKELL www.williamhaskell.com Santa Fe, NM, (505) 470-2823…

In 1898, after Ernest L. Blumenschein rode into Taos, New Mexico, he was inspired to write, “No artist had ever recorded the New Mexico I was now seeing. No writer had ever written down the smell of this air or the feel of that morning’s sky. I was receiving…the first great unforgettable inspiration of my life.” When D.H. Lawrence first experienced the clear light of the high desert in the 1920s, he wrote that “something stood still in my soul…” Parsons Gallery of the West, in Taos, has gathered paintings by artists associated with Taos and the American West for its annual Small Works Holiday Show. The gala evening, featuring about 20 paintings, will be held December 8 from 5 to 8 p.m. Many of the artists will be in…

The appeal of the natural world is universal and, as a result, landscapes remain an enduring genre as varied as the world around us and the artists who paint them. In December, Mockingbird Gallery will showcase five well-known artists that exemplify the different approaches that can be brought to the art of traditional landscapes. Among them is Silas Thompson, who has been giving a lot of thought to why particular pieces have a stronger impact than others. “Landscape paintings in general are very apt tools of the maturing of a pleasure,” says Thompson. “We have been to a place; we have seen it with our eyes; we even took a picture of it, but the memory is something different. The impression—if it is a lasting one—includes vagueness, intensity, lost edges…and…

During a two-week period that straddled late November and early December of 1921, Charles M. Russell visited Denver to exhibit artwork at the Brown Palace Hotel. It was during a critical time for the artist, who was creating some of his most masterful work and showing it around the country amid significant praise. That Denver visit serves as the backdrop for a new Russell exhibition now open at the Denver Art Museum. The exhibition, The Russells in Denver, 1921, is not a recreation of the show, although it will have a number of works that were known to have been displayed at the Brown Palace more than a century ago. “It is a celebration of Charlie and Nancy’s two-week stay in the Mile High City that highlights many of the…

The Basha Collection, acquired over decades by grocery store owner and famous Arizonan Eddie Basha, has been donated to two art museums in the Grand Canyon State: the Heard Museum in Phoenix and Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West. The two museums will split the collection, with many of the Native American materials going to the Heard and the Western material and some Native American objects going to Western Spirit. Many of the art objects will be outright gifts to the institutions, while others will be on long-term loan. The announcement of the donations, made October 9 at the collection’s public gallery in Chandler, Arizona, was widely expected after the Bashas’ grocery chain was sold to a California grocery company in late 2021. Founded in 1932, the chain rose…

Photography by Gabrielle Saveri will be featured in the exhibition Italy’s Legendary Cowboys of the Maremma, opening December 8, at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Her subjects are modern-day butteri, or Italian cowboys, hailing from the lands spanning from the plains of northern Lazio up through the coastal Italian region of Maremma into southern Tuscany. The butteri have a unique and long-standing connection to the American West, which the museum notes: “In 1890, Buffalo Bill brought his Wild West Show to Naples, Italy, and proceeded to Rome as part of his European tour to offer the world an authentic wild frontier experience and showcase American cowboy skills. During that time, he met a local duke and prince named Onorato Caetani and a bet, or sfida,…

1 CANADIAN PAINTER ROBERT DESCHENES CAPTURES WILDLIFE IN PAINT Fresh out of Robert Deschenes’ studio is this new painting, Wild Horizon. “The red fox stands proudly before a stream that flows impetuously into a majestic river. His gaze is fixed on the horizon, the colors bright and vivid, as if life overflowed from every corner of the image,” the artist says. “The fox looks like a guardian of this magical place, a protector of the wild beauty that surrounds it. The sunlight reflecting off the water evokes a sense of peace and serenity, as if all the world’s unpleasantness were being swept away in this moment. The artwork perfectly captures the essence of nature in all its splendor, from its grandeur to its beauty. It invites the viewer to lose themselves…

Wildlife artists are built a little differently. While they still undoubtedly focus on all of the major, technical principles of art, there’s another element to their work entirely. On the one hand, there’s that pure love of art and visual expression that all artists can connect with. And on the other hand, there’s a deep-rooted devotion to animals, to nature and to the wild. You’ll often find many of the greats, both past and present, weren’t just painters or sculptors, but avid explorers, photographers, naturalists and conservationists. It’s not a requirement for painting this subject matter, and yet, a connection to nature seems to come with the territory. Beginning this winter, the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, celebrates the untamed spirit of the American West in the exhibition…

In 1845, George Catlin presented his paintings of Native Americans in Paris. The great French animal painter Rosa Bonheur acquired a set of prints of his paintings. Her interest in Indigenous people and the American West led her to attend William F. Cody’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. She had become friends with Buffalo Bill who gave her free rein to roam the encampment to paint and to draw. She later invited Cody to her estate where she painted a portrait of him on horseback and presented the painting to him as a gift. It later appeared on posters for the Wild West Show’s European tour. Cody employed real cowboys and cowgirls to perform in his spectacle. He had earned the sobriquet “Buffalo Bill”…

Manitou Galleries presents its annual Small Works Show beginning December 1, promising a “treasure trove for collectors, art lovers and gift givers alike.” This exciting display of small-scale artworks comes just in time for the holiday season, offering buyers an opportunity to purchase high-quality Western works at much lower prices. “The Small Works Show is a celebration of artistic diversity and innovation, featuring new work by our beloved gallery favorites,” says gallery associate director Cyndi Hall. “At Manitou Galleries, we firmly believe that small works hold immense value and significance. They possess an inherent charm and intimacy that captivates viewers, inviting them to engage with the artwork on a more personal level.” The show features a variety of mediums and subject matter, such as the Western landscapes of Michael Baum,…

Daryl Urig has painted his entire life. After graduating from Columbus College of Art & Design, he worked as a graphic designer for 15 years designing packages for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle and other companies. He perfected his teaching talent as an adjunct professor with the University of Cincinnati over the course of a decade. As its academic coordinator, Urig created a four-year program for the University of Cincinnati. He also authored three books on painting: Tips for a Contemporary Painter, Plein Air Painting for Everyone and Painting Knife Explained. He is also a contributing writer for Leisure Painter magazine in the United Kingdom. His work has hung in the Columbus Museum of Art and Toledo Museum of Art, as well as in private collections and galleries…

Every year the Young Guns Art Show provides a roadmap to the Western art world for emerging artists prior to the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale and the National Western Stock Show, both held every January. This one-night show is geared toward promoting up-and-coming artists and putting them on the radar of more established collectors while also being attainable to newer art lovers. The experience cultivates a fun and supportive environment for artists and collectors at all stages in life by spotlighting new talent, their contribution to the art scene and transforming art dabblers into flourishing collectors. “I hope that they’re willing to consider emerging artists as much as a part of the art world, or, you know, just as important and significant as some of our more established…