Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024/No. 202 i Western Art Collector

Welcome to the June issue of Western Art Collector! Our podcast, the American Art Collective, is celebrating its 275th episode in June. That’s right, we have 275 episodes and we’re on our way to 300. These stories will live forever in the digital world. Artists, collectors and the world will be listening to these artists’ stories for decades to come. Four years ago we believed these voices needed to be heard, which is why we created the podcast, which complements the printed stories in the magazine. If you haven’t listened to the show, you can find us wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Audible and Spotify. Join the 200,000 other listeners looking for inspiration and education by following the American Art Collective. This issue has our coverage of…

Through July 6 3-Dimensional Paintings VERNON FILLEY ART MUSEUM Pratt, KS – (620) 933-2787 www.vernonfilleyartmuseum.org Through July 28 Sagebrush and Solitude: Maynard Dixon in Nevada  NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART Reno, NV – (775) 329-3333 www.nevadaart.org Through August 4 Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West EITELJORG MUSEUM Indianapolis, IN – (317) 636-9378 www.eiteljorg.org Through August 4 Women Artists of the West Invitational Art Show  WOOLARC MUSEUM AND WILDLIFE PRESERVE Bartlesville, OK – (918) 336-0307 www.woolaroc.org  Through September 1 Cowgirl Up! Art from the Other Half of the West DESERT CABALLEROS WESTERN MUSEUM Wickenburg, AZ – (928) 684-2272 www.westernmuseum.org  Through September 2 Out West: Gay and Lesbian Artists in the Southwest 1900-1969 NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF ART Santa Fe, NM – (505) 476-5063 www.nmartmuseum.org…

1 Jade Tantillo Morrison brings new looks to the New West With vintage looks, goldenhued light and remarkable detail in her figures, Texas painter Jade Tantillo Morrison is forging a path into the art world that leads through the West. Her works, many involving Western subjects in intimate outdoor settings, are evocative of another time and place at the edge of the viewer’s fingertips. “No-niche artist. My style of art is ever-evolving,” she writes online. “A personification of when you’re stuck somewhere in between riding a horse and hailing a cab. Southwest meets the East Coast—a clash between the modern and vintage worlds.” For more information, visit www.jadetantillo.com. 2 Nocona Burgess debuts new work in Taos, New Mexico Comanche painter Nocona Burgess takes classic Western and Native American imagery and…

Although there was some success in Rachel Brownlee’s career prior to 2021, much of it started at the 2021 Mountain Oyster Club exhibition where her work At the Ready won Best of Show. “Since then I have been busy learning new techniques in drawing and learning how to run a fine art business, but mostly I have been focusing on defining my style and my storytelling technique,” Brownlee says. “It is commonly said that an artist’s work reveals what is inside the artist. My work is precise, highly detailed and exacting, both to create and to look at. In fact, I often feel my work is painful in a way. The detail I create requires such time and effort and mental exertion. Most of my pieces hanging on a wall…

Smack in the middle of the year—and in the middle of the country—is the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Prix de West. The grand event, featuring nearly 100 artists, is widely considered the most important gathering for Western art in the country. This year’s show opens May 31 and continues through August 4, but collectors will want to mark their calendars for June 7 and 8, when the museum will roll out the red carpet for the artists and their fans during the sale weekend. Festivities begin with a presentation on Donald Teague’s Western illustrations led by Scott Gale, Teague’s grandson, on June 7. That will be followed by a seminar by T. Allen Lawson and then one by John Coleman. On June 8, Walter Matia will offer a…

Since its inception in 1917, the New Mexico Museum of Art has been at the forefront of collecting and interpreting the art of New Mexico, with particular emphasis on early 20th century art. When its expansion project, Vladem Contemporary, opened in the fall of 2023, one of the museum’s guiding visions was to continue studying and showcasing the art of New Mexico, with a focus on more recent decades. With Off-Center: New Mexico Art, 1970-2000, a retrospective of three exciting decades in the state’s artistic legacy, a collaborative group of curators have put together a landmark exhibition at the Vladem that not only celebrates the rich diversity of creative expression during the era, but also the hubs and hidden gems in the state from where it came. “The artwork in…

Propelled by active bidding and new bidders, Scottsdale Art Auction achieved more than $10.5 million during its April 12 and 13 sale in Arizona. The auction, held over two sessions, also achieved a 97 percent sell-through rate, which is exceptionally high by any auction standards. The top lot was Tom Lovell’s narratively rich painting Cottonwood Gazette, which featured three Native American riders trying to decipher a pictogram from an opposing tribe on a tree. The work, which exemplifies Lovell’s fondness for storytelling within the Old West, was estimated at $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $339,000. The painting, which was the cover of the April issue of Western Art Collector, also came with a small study showing an early version of the painting. A Lovell friend, John Clymer, scored the…

As I’m typing this, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter is sitting comfortably, albeit inexplicably, on top of the pop and the country charts. And the singer is living it up. The music, her outfits, the marketing for her album, the music video for “Texas Hold’em”…name a larger Western presence within pop culture in the last 10 years? I can’t. For anyone who might be thinking this is a complaint or a sarcastic compliment, let me spell it out so there’s no misunderstanding: Beyoncé has brought eyes and ears to the West, and that’s a remarkable feat in contemporary American culture, one that should celebrated. I said as much when TV’s Yellowstone brought renewed attention to ranching and cowboy culture several years ago, and now here’s Beyoncé doing a genuine and heartfelt Western…

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With design, color and the California desert in mind, Eric Merrell features a stellar display of paintings for his show The Land Remains, hosted at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Pasadena, California. Merrell admits to not highlighting any specific theme but rather, attempts to show how amazing and unique the desert is. “[It is] something worth protecting,” he says, adding that it’s also about a “sense of play.” Merrell also paints the California desert most often since it’s the closest to him “and has so many unique and quiet places,” he adds. “Over the past few years, I’ve been digging into themes of water, transportation and extraction in the West, but these new pieces for the show avoid the ever-present human element in the landscape as a way to refocus on…

Maria Hajic, director of naturalism at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, writes of James McElhinney: “In his paintings and prints, McElhinney explores the more ethereal aspects of nature glimpsed only at night, creating haunting landscapes from the Hudson River Valley to the Desert Southwest. Edges dissolve and the landscape is simplified and devoid of details. Capturing the nuances of light, color and shadow, McElhinney evokes a mood as well as a place.” American Nocturnes, an exhibition of his recent work, will be shown at the gallery June 14 through July 20, featuring 15 watercolors, monoprints and intaglio prints. In 2019, McElhinney worked with Michael Costello, master printer at Hand Graphics in Santa Fe. “I had thought about expanding my imagery from daylight landscapes to nocturnes,” he says.…

After spending 47 years in the Midwest, born in Duluth, Minnesota, Liz Wolf moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1997. For her, it was a dream come true. “If I had to describe my work in one word it would be ‘animism,’ which is derived from the Latin word ‘animi’ meaning breath or soul,” Wolf says. “Animism is one of man’s oldest beliefs, that in every object a spirit or soul exists. When I am sculpting, I feel the sculpture take part in its own creation. I listen and we continue to work together. As an artist I feel grateful to see the world beyond its norm. My life as an artist is fulfilling and I will continue to create sculptures in bronze, clay and wood as long as…

Growing up in rural Colorado surrounded by nature, Jean G. Green had the seed of art planted early in life. That seed took root at 22 years old, when Green began serious art studies, taking oil painting classes and making many trips to art museums to study the best. The West kept beckoning, although early on Green didn’t expect to follow the path of Western art. And yet, ranch life kept showing up at her door. The small ranching town in the Colorado high country, where she attended college to study fine art, was where the West eventually recruited her. “During a harsh winter there, I watched a cattle rancher with ice frozen to his beard…use large work horses hitched to a sled piled high with hay to feed his…

Dozens of artists and hundreds of collectors were in attendance at this year’s Night of Artists exhibition and sale at the Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. This year’s event generated nearly $2.6 million in total revenue with 60 percent of the artwork sold. “Night of Artists’ opening weekend reinforced that the Western art genre is alive and well. We have seen this event grow year over year, and this year’s attendance was astounding. With record-breaking attendance, the galleries and the museum itself were full, with collectors, artists and enthusiasts coming from across the country. You could feel the energy and excitement in the galleries. To me, that reflects the strength of the art—and the passion and commitment that fuels it,” says Liz Jackson, museum president and CEO.…

Western Art Trail → Curating the West → Fresh Paint Western Art Trail Calendar OUR GUIDE TO SPECIAL EVENTS, SALES & AUCTIONS FROM COAST TO COAST JUNE 2024 May 31-June 14 Z.Z. Wei: Whispers of the Heartland  BLUE RAIN GALLERY Santa Fe, NM – (505) 954-9902 www.blueraingallery.com June 1 Summer Stampede Western Art and Gear Show NATIONAL RANCHING HERITAGE CENTER Lubbock, TX – (806) 742-0498 www.ranchingheritage.org www.summerstampede.com Through June 2 Miniature Masterpiece Show & Sale PHIPPEN MUSEUM Prescott, AZ – (928) 778-1385 www.phippenartmuseum.org June 4 Art of the American West JOHN MORAN AUCTIONEERS Monrovia, CA – (626) 793-1833 www.johnmoran.com June 6-16 Christy Stallop & Luke Andersons: Visions of the Neo-West GALLERY WILD Jackson, WY – (307) 203-2322 www.gallerywild.com June 7-8 52nd Annual Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale  NATIONAL COWBOY & WESTERN…

ALAN PETERSEN Curator of Fine Art Museum of Northern Arizona Flagstaff, AZ, (928) 774-5213, www.musnaz.org What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why? I’m excited about a new exhibition that we just opened here at Museum of Northern Arizona titled Horse and Rider: A Southwest Story. The exhibition draws from our collection and reflects the varied approaches to depicting horses, the most iconic symbol of the West, in a wide range of styles and media. Many of the works are by Native artists affiliated with the Santa Fe Studio Style, which I love. Can you tell us about any recent acquisitions at the museum? We’re currently reviewing a couple of proposed gifts of work by the artists of Artist…

One of the most iconic painters in the world, Georgia O’Keeffe, was—News Flash!—a woman, something that some of her male contemporaries early in her career were fond of reminding her. Because, you know, she apparently forgot. O’Keeffe, whose career has long since eclipsed the careers of those artists who were so quick to write her off, had a delightfully nuanced approach to much of the dialogue that was directed her way. She rejected her role as a “woman artist”—“The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I’m one of the best painters,” she said—and also embraced it, later saying, “I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” The larger takeaway from her even-handed approach to all this is…

When Z.Z. Wei came to the United States from China in 1989 he was impressed by the energetic landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. His abstracted paintings of Western forms in large landscapes became his trademark. Barns in undulating fields, aerodynamic cars on twisting roads and rusting trucks contain an energy even in the static frame of a painting. Recently, Wei has been looking at buildings long past their picturesque functionality as in his painting Sunset Story. “I think these ‘ruins’ hold rich spiritual value and embody the spirit and emotions of today’s people,” he says. “Yesterday, today and tomorrow form a continuous process that cannot be severed. The interaction between humans and nature creates a rich, diverse, colorful world. Take barns for example, when they are first built, adhering to…

For their two-man show at Manitou Galleries, painters David Jonason and Nocona Burgess “capture the beauty of the American West,” says gallery manager, Cyndi Hall. Converging their unique stylings in Frontiers Reimagined: The Cubist West and Modern Spirit, attendees will get a taste of Jonason’s new illustrative landscape scenes, while Burgess showcases fresh wildlife and figurative pieces inspired by his Comanche heritage. “We represent different aspects of a contemporary vision of Southwestern painting, Anglo and Native American,” says Jonason. “Stylistically, Nocona and I are both using abstraction and simplification with familiar icons of the Southwest: bison, cacti, Native Americans, red rocks, horses.” In around 20 paintings, Jonason explores his typical desert landscapes, but has strongly focused on cactus in the new work. “They have a certain physicality similar to the human…

The West is linked in Tom Fuller’s DNA and the Western lifestyle fills his soul. A self-taught photorealist oil painter, Fuller shares with the world through a paintbrush as he creates exquisitely captured realism that comes from a passionate place in his life. “Each piece is a thorough visual representation of a subject at an exact moment,” Fuller says of his work. With Oklahoma and Kansas roots, Fuller draws from that foundation to overcome a lifetime of obstacles and emerge through pure grit and determination to paint the lifestyle he loves, and it has paid off. In addition to receiving the Western Art Collector Editor’s Choice Award during the International Guild of Realism’s 2020 Spring Salon, Fuller’s work was recently featured on the Peabody Award-winning FX and Hulu series Reservation…

Renso Tamse is a Dutch artist who has traveled the world to paint wildlife in their natural habitats. No other place on earth immediately captivated him more than Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and the American West. The unique and rugged terrain, vast wilderness and abundant wildlife connected him in a way no other place has, and he knew he would have to return year after year. “Even when I’m at home in Holland, a part of me is always in Yellowstone, longing to go back,” the artist says. “With such a variety and abundance of animals, and how easy they are to find, I feel as if they are begging me to paint them.” Tamse’s art is a modern take on wildlife realism. Some paintings are so lifelike they appear…

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