This material comes from New York magazine (nymag.com), an article entitled, “Five Theories On Why the Art Market Can’t Crash and Why It Will Anyway” by Marc Spiegler
The article wasn’t written about Western art, but it is relevant. The categories referred to are Impressionism and Modern (which have been dynamic for quite a while) and Postwar and Contemporary (which are just now taking off).
Here are the five theories:
1. “The Expanded Art World.” Up to twenty times more people are buying art now as in 1990.
2. “The Art World’s Gone Global.” The big recent contemporary-art collectors have been from Brazil, Mexico and South Korea. Next might be Russia and China -- maybe India or Arab emirates. For cowboy artists, Japan and Germany have always been happy. But an interesting “Western art” trend is paintings of and by Russians, Chinese, Mongolians, and so on.
3. “Art is the New Asset Class.” Compares well with real-estate or bonds. Mei-Moses, two NYU economists, did a study that shows contemporary art compares well with the S&P 500. This is constantly pushed among some dealers.
4. “Diversification As a Safety Valve.” Because there are so many different kinds of art (think of video, etc) the action rolls through them so that there are many small corrections to the big category of Art. This is probably less true of Western art, which is not so diverse. The diversity tends to be in the subject matter: still-life, landscape, portraits, wildlife, etc. All representational, if occasionally a little surreal or abstract.
5. “The Japanese.” The last boom (esp. in Impressionism) and bust (linked to a crashing Japanese real estate scene) were both Japanese, but they seem stable now.
Advice: Watch Christie’s and Sotheby’s. In the past they wouldn’t sell works less than ten years old, but now they’re taking works three or four years “out of the studio.” Though their sales are only a tiny part of the art market, they are so public that they tend to control impressions of how the art market is doing. If both major houses have failed auctions back-to-back, people will panic. But in fact, private and gallery sales might be quite different.
“The defining characteristic of the current art world is speed.” People are buying online after seeing “only a J-PEG” image, as opposed to having to travel to a different country and taking months to make a decision. “Speculators, private dealers and consultants” abound and can disappear overnight. (Posting JPEG versions of paintings in online catalogues for auctions has become very sensitive and may diminish online sales.)
The bad words are “correction, contraction or crash,” which mean that prices will be abruptly cut, galleries will disappear, and some artists will become unsaleable. (Anyone want to buy a pickled shark?) Some aspects of some artists (cheap prints) will be worthless. (Hello, Terpning.)
The bright side: Of course, great opportunity for those with reserve cash for buying! And all the softwood imitative artists will drift off to something easier -- maybe rodeo competition -- while those who truly love it for its own sake will continue to follow their vision and sharpen their skills. The best art is always done by hungry artists who aren’t distracted by cocktail parties and opportunists looking for someone to exploit.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
A TWO-FER READALONG
DOUBLE READALONG: You’ll need these two magazines for this to make sense. It’s going to be one of those “compare and contrast” exercises, just to see what turns up.
ART OF THE WEST (March/April, 2006)
SOUTHWEST ART, Fine Art of Today’s West (March, 2006)
1. SW Art is one month, 168 numbered pages, and comes out of El Segundo, CA. It’s part of an Active Interest Media. Inc. I have no idea what that implies.
Art of the West is 2 months, 128 numbered pages, and comes out of Minnetonka, MN, and belongs to Duerr & Tierney, the two publishers.
COVERS: Both are showing women on the cover. SW Art’s is a crisp depiction of cowgirl in SW gear on an appaloosa that is cropped except for enough horse to support the saddle. It’s by Ann Hanson, a Wyoming cowgirl. AofTW shows an nearly black/white with touches of red Spanish dancer, blurry to suggest movement. This is a Pino “female appreciation.” Both artists have stories inside.
ENTRANCES: SW ART: p. 21, a waterside doorway by Grigsby. p76, industrial doors by Sally Cleveland. Ad section in back: “Lavendar Abbey” garden entrance by Greg Gawlowski. SW home by Birgitta Kappe. San Juan Capistrano arcade photo by Vern Clevenger
AotW: p. 122 “A Conversation in Trastavere” by Milly Tsai
CAFES: SW ART: p. 20 Two glowing interiors. Is the artist named “Coffee?” p. ? Near the back: inside lookin’ out by Alan McNiel.
AofW: p. 28 Slightly misty cafe (steam?) by Michael Steirnagle.
p. 25 “Outside the Library” by Keith Larson. I love this one. It's my kinda lifestyle.
BIRDS: SW ART: p. ? Ad section in the back, a sculpted road runner on a pot by Jason Napier.
AotW: p. 116 Magpie on a saddle horn by K.C. Snider.
TERPNING: SW ART: P. 29 “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” print. P. 97, “Protectors” again, plus “Captured from General Crook’s Command” and “Plunder from Sonora.” prints.
AotW: None. p. 91 Ed Kucera’s “The Looking Glass” is a similar style.
FEATURED STUDIO: SW ART: I remember Fred Fellows’ studio when he first showed up in Montana in the Sixties. It was a little more “homemade” then and he owns a lot fancier stuff now, but it’s not all that different. He just has a second wife (he was widowed earlier) and a lot more money.
AotW: Morgan Weistling’s studio is an addition with a pop-up window to bring in light. The room looks homey and includes his grandmother’s century-old dresser and a comfy rocker with cushions and a ruffle. His daughter is home-schooled in his studio. His wife is a painter, too, but she uses a guest room.
In general, Southwest Art, even in an issue with Classic Western Art on the cover, is slightly more open to abstract art. The talented and highly trained Chinese artists are welcome. There’s a guy wearing’ a do-rag and sittin’ on a super-realistic motorcycle. “Road Warrior” by Valerie Stewart, p. ? SWArt is bad about numbering pages. There’s a bit of “NA” art, even baskets, and the inimitable Navajo Gorman, who is so recognizable that his work shows up in cartoons! Once there was a little sequence of cafe art -- this time it’s six tough cowgirls, each unique.
AotWest will be bought by some people (mostly guys) just for the Pino pinups, but women will like “The Matriach” who has white hair now, but as much style as ever. I’m impressed by David Nordahl’s Apaches, which are detailed in his own vivid style and appear to be based on research. AotW includes more notices of exhibits and auctions -- both coming and going -- and a unique feature: a page on “Law and the Art World” by Bill Frazier, Attorney, which always gives good advice. The two publishers also claim a page to make observations of their own, but the actual editor is a woman, Vicki Stavig. At SW Art the editor is Kristin Bucher.
Both magazines noted the passing of several artists. One might think that this because the explosion of Western art of the Sixties and Seventies has meant that time’s arrow has pierced more than a few familiar artists, but there seem to be illness and accidents as well.
When visitors to my house pick up these magazines and flip through them, they sometimes say that all the pictures look the same to them. But they sure don’t look that way to me. Not only do they seem different from each other, they also seem different than they used to be. Better, I think, just like the artists.
ART OF THE WEST (March/April, 2006)
SOUTHWEST ART, Fine Art of Today’s West (March, 2006)
1. SW Art is one month, 168 numbered pages, and comes out of El Segundo, CA. It’s part of an Active Interest Media. Inc. I have no idea what that implies.
Art of the West is 2 months, 128 numbered pages, and comes out of Minnetonka, MN, and belongs to Duerr & Tierney, the two publishers.
COVERS: Both are showing women on the cover. SW Art’s is a crisp depiction of cowgirl in SW gear on an appaloosa that is cropped except for enough horse to support the saddle. It’s by Ann Hanson, a Wyoming cowgirl. AofTW shows an nearly black/white with touches of red Spanish dancer, blurry to suggest movement. This is a Pino “female appreciation.” Both artists have stories inside.
ENTRANCES: SW ART: p. 21, a waterside doorway by Grigsby. p76, industrial doors by Sally Cleveland. Ad section in back: “Lavendar Abbey” garden entrance by Greg Gawlowski. SW home by Birgitta Kappe. San Juan Capistrano arcade photo by Vern Clevenger
AotW: p. 122 “A Conversation in Trastavere” by Milly Tsai
CAFES: SW ART: p. 20 Two glowing interiors. Is the artist named “Coffee?” p. ? Near the back: inside lookin’ out by Alan McNiel.
AofW: p. 28 Slightly misty cafe (steam?) by Michael Steirnagle.
p. 25 “Outside the Library” by Keith Larson. I love this one. It's my kinda lifestyle.
BIRDS: SW ART: p. ? Ad section in the back, a sculpted road runner on a pot by Jason Napier.
AotW: p. 116 Magpie on a saddle horn by K.C. Snider.
TERPNING: SW ART: P. 29 “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” print. P. 97, “Protectors” again, plus “Captured from General Crook’s Command” and “Plunder from Sonora.” prints.
AotW: None. p. 91 Ed Kucera’s “The Looking Glass” is a similar style.
FEATURED STUDIO: SW ART: I remember Fred Fellows’ studio when he first showed up in Montana in the Sixties. It was a little more “homemade” then and he owns a lot fancier stuff now, but it’s not all that different. He just has a second wife (he was widowed earlier) and a lot more money.
AotW: Morgan Weistling’s studio is an addition with a pop-up window to bring in light. The room looks homey and includes his grandmother’s century-old dresser and a comfy rocker with cushions and a ruffle. His daughter is home-schooled in his studio. His wife is a painter, too, but she uses a guest room.
In general, Southwest Art, even in an issue with Classic Western Art on the cover, is slightly more open to abstract art. The talented and highly trained Chinese artists are welcome. There’s a guy wearing’ a do-rag and sittin’ on a super-realistic motorcycle. “Road Warrior” by Valerie Stewart, p. ? SWArt is bad about numbering pages. There’s a bit of “NA” art, even baskets, and the inimitable Navajo Gorman, who is so recognizable that his work shows up in cartoons! Once there was a little sequence of cafe art -- this time it’s six tough cowgirls, each unique.
AotWest will be bought by some people (mostly guys) just for the Pino pinups, but women will like “The Matriach” who has white hair now, but as much style as ever. I’m impressed by David Nordahl’s Apaches, which are detailed in his own vivid style and appear to be based on research. AotW includes more notices of exhibits and auctions -- both coming and going -- and a unique feature: a page on “Law and the Art World” by Bill Frazier, Attorney, which always gives good advice. The two publishers also claim a page to make observations of their own, but the actual editor is a woman, Vicki Stavig. At SW Art the editor is Kristin Bucher.
Both magazines noted the passing of several artists. One might think that this because the explosion of Western art of the Sixties and Seventies has meant that time’s arrow has pierced more than a few familiar artists, but there seem to be illness and accidents as well.
When visitors to my house pick up these magazines and flip through them, they sometimes say that all the pictures look the same to them. But they sure don’t look that way to me. Not only do they seem different from each other, they also seem different than they used to be. Better, I think, just like the artists.
Friday, March 24, 2006
WRITERS TALK ABOUT WESTERN ART
On Thursday at 9PM on Yellowstone Public Radio (which can be streamed at ypr.org) Leni Holliman hosts a redaction (and sometimes rearrangement) of some literary event around the state, often something from last year’s High Plains BookFest in Billings. Last night, March 23, the panel Leni presented was on a topic that I’ve searched for without success until now: writing about Western art.
Montana looks entirely different when viewed from the east end. In the Western valleys where the Montana Festival of the Book is staged, cowboy art, cowboys and talk about cowboy art is mostly met with a blank stare, though I’m sure someone in the Flathead would be happy to sell you some cowboy art from about forty years ago. On the east side of the Rockies you stumble over the cowboy artists themselves, as well as the marks made by some historical figures of some stature.
This panel was chaired by Corby Skinner, who is active with writing, theatre, and so on in Billings. His panel had four members:
1. Bob Wakefield, who was a personal friend of Conrad Schweiring and wrote a book about him. Schweiring’s father was the Dean of the School of Education in Laramie, WY, and though “Connie” wanted to be an artist right away (claimed he painted murals on his bedroom walls when he was a child), his father made him get a degree in commerce and law first -- to make sure he could earn a living. After graduation, Schweiring began to paint but didn’t turn away from art education and ended up in New York City where his best teacher told him he was a good artist, but ought to go back where his heart was: the Tetons. By then married, he and his wife set out towing a trailer and found their “heart spot.” For eleven years they lived in the trailer and sold paintings to tourists. Then they’d made enough money to buy land and build. His reputation was made on big landscapes. Towards the end of his life, having moved to the Mexican coast for the winters, he was working on seascapes -- still learning.
Don Frazer is a Will James expert. The book he wrote was not about James but is a bibliography, which would take plenty of pages as a simple list, with information about each book. James told some fanciful stories about his origins, but in fact he was a Quebequois who came West to Alberta. He did pen and ink sketches only -- no color or oil -- of such detail and delicacy that one can understand all the equipment and manuevers portrayed. Bob Scriver always said that Will James was more of an influence on him than Charlie Russell was. The room where the panel was meeting was decorated in Will James’ pictures.
Tom Minckler is a fine arts dealer and expert on Western art who splits his time between New York City and Montana. His book was still being researched and is unexpected of an unexpected subject: flower still lifes by James Henry Sharp! There turn out to be about 200 of them. Sharp was academy trained in Europe and though he’s noted for paintings of Indians and his involvement with the Taos 7, he also painted many landscapes, often plein air. Bob Scriver had several small sketches painted around Browning, but when Sharp was up north, he mostly stayed in Crow country.
John Taliafero is the author of two boat-rocking books: one a life of Charlie Russell which knocks off a bit of rust and romance in order to reveal a boy who grew up in an affluent and educated family but reinvented himself in Montana as a wild and woolly cowboy who painted his own friends and life. Taliafero also wrote an account of the carving of Mount Rushmore by Gutzon Borglum, pointing out some of the ironies and egomanias involved.
One of the topics Taliafero returned to several times was the ghettoization of Western art. So far in the history of American Art, the Big Deal has been abstract painting in New York City. That has crowded out everything else and in fact, been so hard on realistic representation that such work was driven off into the far corners. Western art then circled its wagons and declared they preferred being able to tell what a painting is about. Since then, there has been a mutually excluding boundary: the Manhattanites consider “cowboy art” to be naive self-taught doodling (though some of it has excellent pedigrees) and cowboy artists think of whatever is sold in big shot galleries as over-intellectual pretentious claptrap.
The very fact that someone so blunt and perceptive as John Taliafero is willing to speak about such things bodes well for the future in my opinion, or the genre will become stagnant and strangulated -- dead. Leni Holliman remarked that after the mikes were turned off at the panel, some smokin’ discussion continued. How I wish I could have heard it!
Maybe next summer at the next High Plains BookFest. The website is already up: www.downtownbillings.org/bcpartners/bookfest1.htm Featured speaker is Ivan Doig, who spent his high school years in Valier, where I live now.
Montana looks entirely different when viewed from the east end. In the Western valleys where the Montana Festival of the Book is staged, cowboy art, cowboys and talk about cowboy art is mostly met with a blank stare, though I’m sure someone in the Flathead would be happy to sell you some cowboy art from about forty years ago. On the east side of the Rockies you stumble over the cowboy artists themselves, as well as the marks made by some historical figures of some stature.
This panel was chaired by Corby Skinner, who is active with writing, theatre, and so on in Billings. His panel had four members:
1. Bob Wakefield, who was a personal friend of Conrad Schweiring and wrote a book about him. Schweiring’s father was the Dean of the School of Education in Laramie, WY, and though “Connie” wanted to be an artist right away (claimed he painted murals on his bedroom walls when he was a child), his father made him get a degree in commerce and law first -- to make sure he could earn a living. After graduation, Schweiring began to paint but didn’t turn away from art education and ended up in New York City where his best teacher told him he was a good artist, but ought to go back where his heart was: the Tetons. By then married, he and his wife set out towing a trailer and found their “heart spot.” For eleven years they lived in the trailer and sold paintings to tourists. Then they’d made enough money to buy land and build. His reputation was made on big landscapes. Towards the end of his life, having moved to the Mexican coast for the winters, he was working on seascapes -- still learning.
Don Frazer is a Will James expert. The book he wrote was not about James but is a bibliography, which would take plenty of pages as a simple list, with information about each book. James told some fanciful stories about his origins, but in fact he was a Quebequois who came West to Alberta. He did pen and ink sketches only -- no color or oil -- of such detail and delicacy that one can understand all the equipment and manuevers portrayed. Bob Scriver always said that Will James was more of an influence on him than Charlie Russell was. The room where the panel was meeting was decorated in Will James’ pictures.
Tom Minckler is a fine arts dealer and expert on Western art who splits his time between New York City and Montana. His book was still being researched and is unexpected of an unexpected subject: flower still lifes by James Henry Sharp! There turn out to be about 200 of them. Sharp was academy trained in Europe and though he’s noted for paintings of Indians and his involvement with the Taos 7, he also painted many landscapes, often plein air. Bob Scriver had several small sketches painted around Browning, but when Sharp was up north, he mostly stayed in Crow country.
John Taliafero is the author of two boat-rocking books: one a life of Charlie Russell which knocks off a bit of rust and romance in order to reveal a boy who grew up in an affluent and educated family but reinvented himself in Montana as a wild and woolly cowboy who painted his own friends and life. Taliafero also wrote an account of the carving of Mount Rushmore by Gutzon Borglum, pointing out some of the ironies and egomanias involved.
One of the topics Taliafero returned to several times was the ghettoization of Western art. So far in the history of American Art, the Big Deal has been abstract painting in New York City. That has crowded out everything else and in fact, been so hard on realistic representation that such work was driven off into the far corners. Western art then circled its wagons and declared they preferred being able to tell what a painting is about. Since then, there has been a mutually excluding boundary: the Manhattanites consider “cowboy art” to be naive self-taught doodling (though some of it has excellent pedigrees) and cowboy artists think of whatever is sold in big shot galleries as over-intellectual pretentious claptrap.
The very fact that someone so blunt and perceptive as John Taliafero is willing to speak about such things bodes well for the future in my opinion, or the genre will become stagnant and strangulated -- dead. Leni Holliman remarked that after the mikes were turned off at the panel, some smokin’ discussion continued. How I wish I could have heard it!
Maybe next summer at the next High Plains BookFest. The website is already up: www.downtownbillings.org/bcpartners/bookfest1.htm Featured speaker is Ivan Doig, who spent his high school years in Valier, where I live now.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
THE SCULPTOR'S SECOND WIFE
Jeanette Caouette Scriver Chase has died of rheumatoid arthritis and simple old age in a nursing home in Grants Pass, Oregon. She was Bob Scriver’s second wife, the one who helped him make the transition from music to sculpture. The relationships among former wives are unpredictable, dependent on individual personalities and the circumstances and times of the marriage. Bob was a problematic husband, one of those larger than life personalities who gets that way by sucking up the energy of everyone around him. I sometimes joked I would start a support group for the four of us who were formal wives and others who never quite made it to that status.
Bob’s first marriage was a catastrophe -- both persons too young, a shotgun wedding when neither was prepared for a child, and two families of origin who were not supportive. Maybe the two fathers were, but not the mothers.
Jeanette and I could not be more different and we were from entirely different eras, but Bob’s problem with us was the same: we were strong creative women who could propel him where he wanted to go, but he couldn’t quite control us and was sometimes afraid of us. So relating to him was sometimes ecstatic when it all balanced and then demonic when we were in pitched battles over who was in charge.
Jeanette was born in Morinville, Alberta, a little French-Canadian town north of Edmonton. She was the oldest and the first of her generation, very much cherished by a huge extended family. Her father ran a barbershop and pool hall and she was his favorite, so his patrons were also among her admirers. Her father’s family was easy-going, music-loving, full of jokes.
French-Canadian Alphonse/Gaston jokes (as remembered and told by Bob, who loved them.) The two are nailing shingles onto a roof. “Alphonse, why are you throwing half the nails away?” “I have to, Gaston. The heads are on the wrong ends.” “But Alphonse, those are for the other side of the roof!”
Alphonse and Gaston go fishing in a rented row boat. “Alphonse, this place is such a wonderful spot for fish. You better mark a big X on the side of the boat to show where it is.” “Gaston, don’t be stupid. We might not get the same boat next time!”
My favorite: Alphonse and Gaston are arranging to meet but concerned that they might miss each other. “Alphonse, if I get there first, I’ll make a blue mark on the wall.” “Right, Gaston. And if I get there first, I’ll rub it out.”
Jeanette’s mother’s family came to Alberta after some years in Argentina and were a different kind of French: thrifty, religious, careful in all ways. Jeanette’s mother never warmed to her but was absorbed in Helene, a very pretty little girl who sang and danced. There was a third daughter, whom Jeanette claimed as “hers.” But she died of rheumatic fever. The impact on the whole family was deep. And there was a son Maurice, born late, whom Jeanette also claimed. She loved to manage men, thought they were all boys who would go astray without a firm hand.
Even now, old ranchers and townsmen will remark to me that they were fond of Jeanette. She flirted with them all, danced with many while Bob played with his band, and they thought that Bob worked her too hard and didn’t appreciate her. She had a business making custom cowboy shirts and buckskin jackets. A woman contacted me recently because she had been cleaning out her closets and came across the buckskin jacket she had bought from Jeanette and saved because it was fringed and beaded by Blackfeet. The label in it gave Jeanette’s name and “Browning, Montana,” and Google offered one of my blog entries mentioning her.
Bob married Jeanette’s family to the extent that long after the divorce in 1959 we visited San Rafael (1967) and found Helene (the beautiful sister as opposed to Jeanette’s intelligent sister) and Maurice. These two sibs became the models for Bob’s small cluster of religious scuptures: first a commissioned corpus for a cross and two busts of Maurice (one expressionistic in character as Jesus and one severely classical as himself); then a Pieta when Bob’s daughter (about Maurice’s age) died; and finally a huge project that proposed a statue of Jesus on top of a pyramidal peace monument -- rather transparently intended to give peace to Bob Scriver. Helene and Maurice became Bob’s emotional center in his last years, not always comfortably since they could not make the world right for him, as he begged them to do.
Jeanette, on the other hand, “married” Bob’s first wife and his two children by her. Unable to have children herself, she dedicated herself to the two small and chubby kidlets and did her best to be their mother. (Their blood mother went on to have four more children with a second husband.) She stuck by the daughter until she died of colon cancer in 1967, but had a harder time with the son who also died of cancer.
At one time this sort of dynamic was hidden and considered embarrassing, but now I’ve seen the same patterns so many times in so many families, that I see no reason to hide them. Still, there were uniquenesses. It was the daughter’s death that had three wives sitting around a kitchen table, arguing amiably about who got stuck in the mud on a duck-hunting expedition and then, more seriously, what should be the fate of the daughter’s children.
Jeanette came back to Browning several times, briefly visiting the museum and signing the guest book. Bob always ran away and locked himself in his little house, as though she might tear strips off him. She brought her harmless and sweet husband, Norman, along with her. Bob never tried to make peace except while his daughter was dying.
So I went the other way. I came back often and hung around every chance I got. It took a while for Bob to stay in the shop when he saw me, but then he grew used to it and would come out to meet me, unexpectedly dumping a pet badger or bobcat into my arms.
When Bob died in 1999, I began to research for the biography of him he’d always asked me to write, but then interfered with so much that I couldn’t do it. When I called Helene DeVicq, she gave me Jeanette’s email address. It turned out that Jan Chase, as she was known then, had a computer that “her Norman” had given her as a “toy.” She had just returned to her house after a terrible bout of bad health.
When Norman died of cancer, Jan’s health also came apart. She fell and shattered a leg and rheumatoid arthritis twisted her hands. After operations that left her hallucinating for months from the anesthetics, she went into a nursing home, not expected to live. To pay bills she authorized someone to sell all her furniture, with some reservations. One thing NOT to be sold was the classic bust of Maurice, her brother, which her mother had owned. But it was sold to some stranger who had no idea what it was, offending Maurice to the heart. The computer was not sold. It’s value was recognized, while the sculpture was just a tschotske.
After a time Jeanette was moved to a care home where she began to recover and eventually was able to move back to her house. She bought a bed, a rocking chair, and a very few other things and engaged someone to come clean and otherwise help out. She had sold one of her paintings for enough money to pay a carpenter to build-in a breakfast nook. A food pantry operated out of her pool cabana. She was able to keyboard with one finger, pecking out telegraphy and forwarding all the awful stuff people constantly forward.
We corresponded almost two years before she declared it was too painful, that I’d made her look at things she’d resolved never to think of again, and that there was no point to it. She ripped a lot of photos out of her albums and sent them to me, including a photo of her cameras! (She was a professional-level photographer, either learning with Bob or teaching him.)
But anyway, I’d double-crossed her by repeating to her family some of the increasingly dangerous episodes in her health while she was alone. She thought she could control death and that it would be sudden. Instead, she died helpless in that nursing home in Oregon -- her cherished house sold to pay the bill.
I celebrate Jeanette’s drive to exist and prevail, her energy towards goals not always her own, and her determination to have things “right.” Before she asked me not to call anymore, I could hear her while on the phone directing the person making up her bed how to properly place the pillow and how far the topsheet should be folded over the blanket. She could no longer do it herself. She was a lesson and a caution. I hope she made Saint Peter spell her name properly when she got to the Pearly Gates. I have no doubt she was welcome.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
FINAL GREAT FALLS AD CLUB AUCTION TOTALS
$2.2 million at the auction “proper” as compared to $1.9 million last year.
$275,000 at the fixed price sale.
$52,750 at the two Quick Draws.
Top price went to the Russell: “Judith Basin Cowboy”
First runner up was Russell Chatham’s $140,000 painting in the fixed price sale.
At the first auction in 1969 (I was there.) the total of sales was $10,872. The first artists were asked to donate their art.
$275,000 at the fixed price sale.
$52,750 at the two Quick Draws.
Top price went to the Russell: “Judith Basin Cowboy”
First runner up was Russell Chatham’s $140,000 painting in the fixed price sale.
At the first auction in 1969 (I was there.) the total of sales was $10,872. The first artists were asked to donate their art.
Monday, March 20, 2006
BOTTOM LINES
No one ever pretended the CM Russell Auction was about anything but money. When in the Sixties the Great Falls Ad Club invented the auction, they frankly intended to make money to benefit the CM Russell Museum in Great Falls -- period. The auction has fulfilled that goal with such effectiveness that sometimes onlookers lose focus.
Let’s look at the money:
THURSDAY FIXED-PRICE SALE TOTAL: (This was a new feature and was held at the C.M. Russell Museum.) $275,000 TOTAL
Most expensive: Russell Chatham’s “Rain Sweeping Over the Sweet Grass Basin.” $140,000
74 living artists participated and the works will remain on sale until March 31.
FRIDAY AUCTION TOTAL: $750,000. (Last year same night was $753,000.
C.M. Russell’s “Indian Portrait” (10 by 8 inch watercolor) valued at $55,000 to $65,000 sold for $45,000.
Clyde Aspevig’s “Winter Glow” (“big” oil) estimated at $50,000 to $70,000 sold for $32.500
O.C. Seltzer’s “Blackfoot Scout” (16 by 17 inch watercolor) valued at $30,000 to $45,000 went for $35,000
E.S. Paxson “The Aspen Fireplace Screen” (51 by 48 oil) valued at $20,000 to $25,000 went for $32,500
Chuck Fulcher “Under a Yellow Canopy” (oil) valued at $2,000 to $3,000 went for $2500. (The painting won the Tuffy Berg Award for best new artist. Fulcher works for Lodestone Advertising in Great Falls.)
Three lots failed to meet their minimum and were withdrawn.
Saturday night’s totals haven’t been given yet, or maybe I missed them. The keystone to that night was two letters written and illustrated by Russell and sent to Robert Benn, proprietor of the bar in Kalispell’s Montana Hotel. One was written August 15, 1908, and the other July 22, 1910. Benn was murdered on March 27, 1915. It was rough in them days. (I can’t resist saying that Bob Scriver was born August 15, 1914.) One letter sold for $70,000 and the other for $69,000. I doubt anyone could tell you the reason for the $1,000 difference.
There were two sets of “QUICK DRAW.” This year there was no model and the artists had a whole hour to work, rather than 45 minutes. They painted “out of their heads” or from photos. The first go-round added up to $28,000 for the work of twelve artists, almost double last year’s Friday quick draw ($14,850). Together the two go-rounds raised $52,750. (Last year the total was $55,550.) There was only one sculpture in each event. Gerald Balciar’s “Eagle Rock” went for $10,000. (One assumes the clay will be translated into something else, like bronze.) The most unusual painting was in French dye on silk, “Catch & No Release” by Nancy Dunlop Gawdrey, which sold for $5,000.
Aside from the Russell main action auction, there are a number of parallel gallery and association events. At the Great Falls Native American Art Show in the Civic Center, the event was swept by Blackfeet. Lyle Omeaso and Terrance Guardipee won juror’s choice. Honorable mentions went to David Dragonfly, Gale Running Wolf Sr, Kodi Kuka and King Kuka. In the miniature program the juror’s choice went to David Dragonfly and Robert Orduno, Honorable mention to Howard Pepion, Francis Wall, Valentina LaPier, Khol Kuka and King Kuka. These were not purchase prices and there is no mention of sales.
One of the most interesting stories was the fate of a fake Russell that showed up in last year’s auction. Paul Masa of Kalispell said he burned it “under the personal supervision of Ginger Renner.” B. Byron Price claims there were only two of these paintings of “Black Eagle” whom Russell knew from the winter of 1888-1889. I suspect that a search of negatives would come up with the photo Russell used for reference. If someone discovers irrefutable proof that Russell painted the “fake” after all, there will be wailing. He DID sometimes paint the same subject twice or even more. That’s not unusual.
Another interesting development is that the Russell Auction, which has in the past been “local” and “Western” has begun to open out to other representative art. In fact, the “best of show” was to Calvin Liang for “Newport Sailboats.” (One assumes that was Newport, Washington.) I think this is the trend most likely to change the face of the auction, so that it will be more like the Western Rendezvous show in Helena. In fact, I suspect that the genre of “Western art” may be in the process of losing its boundaries into the larger world of realistic art, esp. when it comes to landscapes and still lifes.
One exhibitor at the Heritage Inn kept a tally of visitors to his room and found that last year he had close to 2,500 visitors but this year he counted more like a thousand. I had a sense that there were fewer exhibitors in fewer rooms, but thought it was because I went on Thursday rather than Saturday. A major snowstorm came through late in the auction, which confused the issue. Did people stay away because the weather was so good just before the snow, or did they come when the snow began? Many exhibitors stayed over until the roads were safer.
It seemed to me that might be less enthusiasm on the part of motel management now that Al Donohue, one of the heavyweight Ad Club personalities, is deceased. The effort and wear-and-tear are enormous. The motel itself is aging, though it’s well-maintained.
In the case of the usually overrun Manitou Galleries auction at the Townhouse Motel, the action was clearly diminished. (There weren’t even many gamblers in Lucky Lil’s.) Nelson has sold the auction (but not his galleries) to Best of the West so the great quantity of assorted stuff he normally provided was not there. A modest show in the basement was more convenient, but less exciting.
One exhibitor said it was just much easier to sell art on the Internet. When I suggested that complications were arising with artists becoming reluctant to post photos of their works online (because of copying), they reported they hadn’t felt the effects yet.
Much of the reported material was about the big-time buyers, who appear to be treating the auction like a sporting event. They come in a group in a corporate jet, usually organized by someone who has become a Western art enthusiast, and each buy a dozen or so works, calling them “an expensive hobby” or “an addiction.” For them, being there is at least part of the point and it’s a chance to see the West, dress up in Western clothes and so on. In short, play “Dallas.” There were a few shadowy figures who bought big-ticket art (like the Chatham) and remained anonymous. People generally suspected the media figures who have ranches in the state. But who knows? Might have been Japanese millionaires or German aficionadoes.
The Scriver bronzes were mostly the usual late and small pieces that circulate constantly through the auctions. In general, I thought the bronzes being shown were all high quality, and so was the painting. I’m always bemused by the monumental sculptures that show up on low-boys and are parked as close to the doors as they can get. This year there were fewer realistic horses and more wild welded Indian figures with a lot of action and whipping cables in them. Often skillful and striking! Something to put by the gate of your McMansion in a wheat field. (There weren't any of those in the Sixties when this auction first started.)
Let’s look at the money:
THURSDAY FIXED-PRICE SALE TOTAL: (This was a new feature and was held at the C.M. Russell Museum.) $275,000 TOTAL
Most expensive: Russell Chatham’s “Rain Sweeping Over the Sweet Grass Basin.” $140,000
74 living artists participated and the works will remain on sale until March 31.
FRIDAY AUCTION TOTAL: $750,000. (Last year same night was $753,000.
C.M. Russell’s “Indian Portrait” (10 by 8 inch watercolor) valued at $55,000 to $65,000 sold for $45,000.
Clyde Aspevig’s “Winter Glow” (“big” oil) estimated at $50,000 to $70,000 sold for $32.500
O.C. Seltzer’s “Blackfoot Scout” (16 by 17 inch watercolor) valued at $30,000 to $45,000 went for $35,000
E.S. Paxson “The Aspen Fireplace Screen” (51 by 48 oil) valued at $20,000 to $25,000 went for $32,500
Chuck Fulcher “Under a Yellow Canopy” (oil) valued at $2,000 to $3,000 went for $2500. (The painting won the Tuffy Berg Award for best new artist. Fulcher works for Lodestone Advertising in Great Falls.)
Three lots failed to meet their minimum and were withdrawn.
Saturday night’s totals haven’t been given yet, or maybe I missed them. The keystone to that night was two letters written and illustrated by Russell and sent to Robert Benn, proprietor of the bar in Kalispell’s Montana Hotel. One was written August 15, 1908, and the other July 22, 1910. Benn was murdered on March 27, 1915. It was rough in them days. (I can’t resist saying that Bob Scriver was born August 15, 1914.) One letter sold for $70,000 and the other for $69,000. I doubt anyone could tell you the reason for the $1,000 difference.
There were two sets of “QUICK DRAW.” This year there was no model and the artists had a whole hour to work, rather than 45 minutes. They painted “out of their heads” or from photos. The first go-round added up to $28,000 for the work of twelve artists, almost double last year’s Friday quick draw ($14,850). Together the two go-rounds raised $52,750. (Last year the total was $55,550.) There was only one sculpture in each event. Gerald Balciar’s “Eagle Rock” went for $10,000. (One assumes the clay will be translated into something else, like bronze.) The most unusual painting was in French dye on silk, “Catch & No Release” by Nancy Dunlop Gawdrey, which sold for $5,000.
Aside from the Russell main action auction, there are a number of parallel gallery and association events. At the Great Falls Native American Art Show in the Civic Center, the event was swept by Blackfeet. Lyle Omeaso and Terrance Guardipee won juror’s choice. Honorable mentions went to David Dragonfly, Gale Running Wolf Sr, Kodi Kuka and King Kuka. In the miniature program the juror’s choice went to David Dragonfly and Robert Orduno, Honorable mention to Howard Pepion, Francis Wall, Valentina LaPier, Khol Kuka and King Kuka. These were not purchase prices and there is no mention of sales.
One of the most interesting stories was the fate of a fake Russell that showed up in last year’s auction. Paul Masa of Kalispell said he burned it “under the personal supervision of Ginger Renner.” B. Byron Price claims there were only two of these paintings of “Black Eagle” whom Russell knew from the winter of 1888-1889. I suspect that a search of negatives would come up with the photo Russell used for reference. If someone discovers irrefutable proof that Russell painted the “fake” after all, there will be wailing. He DID sometimes paint the same subject twice or even more. That’s not unusual.
Another interesting development is that the Russell Auction, which has in the past been “local” and “Western” has begun to open out to other representative art. In fact, the “best of show” was to Calvin Liang for “Newport Sailboats.” (One assumes that was Newport, Washington.) I think this is the trend most likely to change the face of the auction, so that it will be more like the Western Rendezvous show in Helena. In fact, I suspect that the genre of “Western art” may be in the process of losing its boundaries into the larger world of realistic art, esp. when it comes to landscapes and still lifes.
One exhibitor at the Heritage Inn kept a tally of visitors to his room and found that last year he had close to 2,500 visitors but this year he counted more like a thousand. I had a sense that there were fewer exhibitors in fewer rooms, but thought it was because I went on Thursday rather than Saturday. A major snowstorm came through late in the auction, which confused the issue. Did people stay away because the weather was so good just before the snow, or did they come when the snow began? Many exhibitors stayed over until the roads were safer.
It seemed to me that might be less enthusiasm on the part of motel management now that Al Donohue, one of the heavyweight Ad Club personalities, is deceased. The effort and wear-and-tear are enormous. The motel itself is aging, though it’s well-maintained.
In the case of the usually overrun Manitou Galleries auction at the Townhouse Motel, the action was clearly diminished. (There weren’t even many gamblers in Lucky Lil’s.) Nelson has sold the auction (but not his galleries) to Best of the West so the great quantity of assorted stuff he normally provided was not there. A modest show in the basement was more convenient, but less exciting.
One exhibitor said it was just much easier to sell art on the Internet. When I suggested that complications were arising with artists becoming reluctant to post photos of their works online (because of copying), they reported they hadn’t felt the effects yet.
Much of the reported material was about the big-time buyers, who appear to be treating the auction like a sporting event. They come in a group in a corporate jet, usually organized by someone who has become a Western art enthusiast, and each buy a dozen or so works, calling them “an expensive hobby” or “an addiction.” For them, being there is at least part of the point and it’s a chance to see the West, dress up in Western clothes and so on. In short, play “Dallas.” There were a few shadowy figures who bought big-ticket art (like the Chatham) and remained anonymous. People generally suspected the media figures who have ranches in the state. But who knows? Might have been Japanese millionaires or German aficionadoes.
The Scriver bronzes were mostly the usual late and small pieces that circulate constantly through the auctions. In general, I thought the bronzes being shown were all high quality, and so was the painting. I’m always bemused by the monumental sculptures that show up on low-boys and are parked as close to the doors as they can get. This year there were fewer realistic horses and more wild welded Indian figures with a lot of action and whipping cables in them. Often skillful and striking! Something to put by the gate of your McMansion in a wheat field. (There weren't any of those in the Sixties when this auction first started.)
Friday, March 17, 2006
CM Russell Auction in Great Falls 3-17-06
Two gents were sitting on either side of one of the doors to a motel room/temporary gallery, so that one had to walk between them to get in. One man was clearly part-Indian (“Assiniboine-Cherokee,” he confided, “But I never lived on a reservation.”) the other one looked vaguely familiar. In search of clues, I asked him, “Are you from Montana?” He looked as though he were trying to decide whether to kick me or laugh. He was Ron Marlenee, the Montana Representative to the United States Congress for twenty years. I thought of him as being ancient, but when I Googled him, I see he’s only five years older than me.
After a side nod to Bob Scriver, the two guys launched into stories about drunken Indians, mostly Billy Big Springs. For those who don’t know, Billy was a massively built oil millionaire who married a petite Irish Colleen from back east. (Happy St. Pat’s, Mrs. Big Springs!) And so it goes at the annual C.M. Russell Museum benefit auction and associated events.
I really went down to Great Falls to look for photos of Bob Scriver in the Tribune morgue, but it turned out that they were being put online and even the librarian in charge of them didn’t know how to access them. I’ll have to wait a week. So I swung by the main auction motel, where all the rooms are converted to galleries once a year, and minor Scriver bronzes abound on all sides. This year was much smaller and quieter, partly because some of the main action had migrated back to the actual museum and partly because -- or so it seemed -- the exhibitors and customers were all as long in the tooth as me and Marlenee. We’ve now seen the entire arc of the Western art genre from its meteoric rise in the Seventies to its roaring Eighties and Nineties and then a long sliding descent into the 21st century.
At the “other” auction at the “other” motel, the action was even slower. Nelson, son of Van Kirke Nelson and owner of the Manitou Galleries, has sold the auction to Best of the West Auctions. (He kept the galleries.) The long tables of objects with dubious provenance are replaced by a modest assortment in a basement display room. Lots of Ace Powell and Nancy McLaughlin works.
But I wasn’t looking for art -- I was looking for people, like Ace and Nancy’s son David. Didn’t catch up with him but did run into Rex and Judy Rieke with Judy’s sister, Gail. Once again we swapped email and blog addresses. Rex will have a show at the Yellowstone Art Center in Billings -- all abstract paintings. I watch Rex very closely. He’s the person who sold Bob his first Rungius moose painting, a keystone for Bob’s art thinking, and he is also a musician, more persistently than Bob. He still plays. If Rex is doing abstracts, what does it mean? And yet the old guys lounging around the motel rooms suggested that the Western art market has just about bottomed out and will soon begin to go back up. I suggested that a new crop of soldiers might be prospective customers and soon found myself in political soup. It was more interesting than the art.
While I was in the big city, I picked up the latest issues of “Art of the West” and “Southwest Art” and was interested to see in the former mag’s letters to the editor a quite stiff scolding to the Cowboy Artists of America (once beyond rebuke) recommending that they stop the sausage factory and begin to make real art again! Most of the letter quoted an admonishment from Fred Renner, whose wife, Ginger, is one of the stalwarts in Great Falls this weekend. I’d have liked to have talked to her.
After a side nod to Bob Scriver, the two guys launched into stories about drunken Indians, mostly Billy Big Springs. For those who don’t know, Billy was a massively built oil millionaire who married a petite Irish Colleen from back east. (Happy St. Pat’s, Mrs. Big Springs!) And so it goes at the annual C.M. Russell Museum benefit auction and associated events.
I really went down to Great Falls to look for photos of Bob Scriver in the Tribune morgue, but it turned out that they were being put online and even the librarian in charge of them didn’t know how to access them. I’ll have to wait a week. So I swung by the main auction motel, where all the rooms are converted to galleries once a year, and minor Scriver bronzes abound on all sides. This year was much smaller and quieter, partly because some of the main action had migrated back to the actual museum and partly because -- or so it seemed -- the exhibitors and customers were all as long in the tooth as me and Marlenee. We’ve now seen the entire arc of the Western art genre from its meteoric rise in the Seventies to its roaring Eighties and Nineties and then a long sliding descent into the 21st century.
At the “other” auction at the “other” motel, the action was even slower. Nelson, son of Van Kirke Nelson and owner of the Manitou Galleries, has sold the auction to Best of the West Auctions. (He kept the galleries.) The long tables of objects with dubious provenance are replaced by a modest assortment in a basement display room. Lots of Ace Powell and Nancy McLaughlin works.
But I wasn’t looking for art -- I was looking for people, like Ace and Nancy’s son David. Didn’t catch up with him but did run into Rex and Judy Rieke with Judy’s sister, Gail. Once again we swapped email and blog addresses. Rex will have a show at the Yellowstone Art Center in Billings -- all abstract paintings. I watch Rex very closely. He’s the person who sold Bob his first Rungius moose painting, a keystone for Bob’s art thinking, and he is also a musician, more persistently than Bob. He still plays. If Rex is doing abstracts, what does it mean? And yet the old guys lounging around the motel rooms suggested that the Western art market has just about bottomed out and will soon begin to go back up. I suggested that a new crop of soldiers might be prospective customers and soon found myself in political soup. It was more interesting than the art.
While I was in the big city, I picked up the latest issues of “Art of the West” and “Southwest Art” and was interested to see in the former mag’s letters to the editor a quite stiff scolding to the Cowboy Artists of America (once beyond rebuke) recommending that they stop the sausage factory and begin to make real art again! Most of the letter quoted an admonishment from Fred Renner, whose wife, Ginger, is one of the stalwarts in Great Falls this weekend. I’d have liked to have talked to her.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Scriver Bronze Donation
www.cutbankpioneerpress.com
Cut Bank, MT •
Former resident donates valuable Robert Scriver bronze to local museum.
[Photo at the Pioneer Press website]
BY LINDA BRUCH for the Cut Bank Pioneer Press
Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:48 AM MST
The word bronze can mean a couple different things. It can mean the color of your skin after basking in the summer sun. It might also be referring to the color of a medal received by a third place finisher in the Olympics. Then again, it could mean a fabulous sculpture created by Bob Scriver. It's the last definition Glacier County is excited about.
This Robert Scriver bronze, with a certified value of $15,000, has been donated to the Glacier County Historical Museum by a former Cut Bank resident. Pegge Dallum, the sister of David Withers, first thought she would donate the bronze, which is entitled “Too Late for the Hawken,” to the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, but then decided it belongs in Glacier County.
In December of last year, David Withers' sister, Pegge Dallum, made a decision to donate a fabulous bronze sculpture she had in her possession. She hadn't quite made up her mind where to donate the bronze, but she did have a couple ideas. One of the places she was thinking about was the C. M. Russell Museum in Great Falls. Dallum was just about ready to start the paperwork for the Great Falls museum, when another option came to mind.
What about donating it to Glacier County? After all, she used to live here and still has family ties in Cut Bank. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. This time when she started the paperwork, it was to donate the bronze to Glacier County.
The bronze is entitled “Too Late for the Hawken.” It depicts a fur trapper who has obviously been surprised by an Indian on horseback. The Indian, with his spear-like javelin in hand, is ready to impale the trapper. It is obvious the trapper, whose rifle is in plain sight, will not be able to reach his weapon in time to save his life. The piece is magnificent and much like all the other creations designed by Scriver gives incredible attention to detail.
Scriver, a world-renowned sculptor, is credited for creating thousands of outstanding bronze sculptures. The pieces vary in size from tabletop to full-size and each one is remarkable in its own right.
Much like Dallum, Scriver had deep roots in Glacier County as well. He was born in Browning in 1914 and lived and worked there most of his life. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in music and for 17 years shared his love of music by teaching it.
In 1951, Scriver changed careers and became a taxidermist, opening up his own business in Browning. It wasn't long before his talents and abilities as a taxidermist made him well known throughout Montana. It was this foundation that ultimately led to his calling as a sculptor in 1956. For the next 34 years, Scriver would continue to sculpt, receiving worldwide fame for the fabulous pieces he shaped.
His life ended in 1999 at the age of 84, but his work is timeless and will continue to be shown in galleries, museums and exhibitions throughout North America. Scriver's work truly speaks for itself and explains why he has been called “American's foremost living sculptor of the west.”
“Too Late for the Hawken” has been certified at $15,000 by Cut Bank attorney Darrell Peterson. “This is a pretty major piece,” said Peterson. He agreed Glacier County was lucky to have been the recipient of this fantastic piece of work. Peterson knows what he is talking about as both he and his office have a number of Scriver bronzes, making him a good authority on their worth and beauty.
Peterson said a number of Scriver pieces are currently on display at the Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena. With more Scriver pieces in storage than they currently have room to display they have begun preparations to construct a new showroom designated specifically to Scriver bronzes. It is estimated this exhibit will hold approximately 1,100 pieces crafted by Scriver.
If you didn't think Glacier County was fortunate to receive this generous gift before, here's betting you do now. Glacier County would like to offer a huge thank you to Pegge Dallum for this wonderful donation. It is proudly on display at the Glacier County Historical Museum.
Cut Bank, MT •
Former resident donates valuable Robert Scriver bronze to local museum.
[Photo at the Pioneer Press website]
BY LINDA BRUCH for the Cut Bank Pioneer Press
Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:48 AM MST
The word bronze can mean a couple different things. It can mean the color of your skin after basking in the summer sun. It might also be referring to the color of a medal received by a third place finisher in the Olympics. Then again, it could mean a fabulous sculpture created by Bob Scriver. It's the last definition Glacier County is excited about.
This Robert Scriver bronze, with a certified value of $15,000, has been donated to the Glacier County Historical Museum by a former Cut Bank resident. Pegge Dallum, the sister of David Withers, first thought she would donate the bronze, which is entitled “Too Late for the Hawken,” to the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, but then decided it belongs in Glacier County.
In December of last year, David Withers' sister, Pegge Dallum, made a decision to donate a fabulous bronze sculpture she had in her possession. She hadn't quite made up her mind where to donate the bronze, but she did have a couple ideas. One of the places she was thinking about was the C. M. Russell Museum in Great Falls. Dallum was just about ready to start the paperwork for the Great Falls museum, when another option came to mind.
What about donating it to Glacier County? After all, she used to live here and still has family ties in Cut Bank. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. This time when she started the paperwork, it was to donate the bronze to Glacier County.
The bronze is entitled “Too Late for the Hawken.” It depicts a fur trapper who has obviously been surprised by an Indian on horseback. The Indian, with his spear-like javelin in hand, is ready to impale the trapper. It is obvious the trapper, whose rifle is in plain sight, will not be able to reach his weapon in time to save his life. The piece is magnificent and much like all the other creations designed by Scriver gives incredible attention to detail.
Scriver, a world-renowned sculptor, is credited for creating thousands of outstanding bronze sculptures. The pieces vary in size from tabletop to full-size and each one is remarkable in its own right.
Much like Dallum, Scriver had deep roots in Glacier County as well. He was born in Browning in 1914 and lived and worked there most of his life. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in music and for 17 years shared his love of music by teaching it.
In 1951, Scriver changed careers and became a taxidermist, opening up his own business in Browning. It wasn't long before his talents and abilities as a taxidermist made him well known throughout Montana. It was this foundation that ultimately led to his calling as a sculptor in 1956. For the next 34 years, Scriver would continue to sculpt, receiving worldwide fame for the fabulous pieces he shaped.
His life ended in 1999 at the age of 84, but his work is timeless and will continue to be shown in galleries, museums and exhibitions throughout North America. Scriver's work truly speaks for itself and explains why he has been called “American's foremost living sculptor of the west.”
“Too Late for the Hawken” has been certified at $15,000 by Cut Bank attorney Darrell Peterson. “This is a pretty major piece,” said Peterson. He agreed Glacier County was lucky to have been the recipient of this fantastic piece of work. Peterson knows what he is talking about as both he and his office have a number of Scriver bronzes, making him a good authority on their worth and beauty.
Peterson said a number of Scriver pieces are currently on display at the Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena. With more Scriver pieces in storage than they currently have room to display they have begun preparations to construct a new showroom designated specifically to Scriver bronzes. It is estimated this exhibit will hold approximately 1,100 pieces crafted by Scriver.
If you didn't think Glacier County was fortunate to receive this generous gift before, here's betting you do now. Glacier County would like to offer a huge thank you to Pegge Dallum for this wonderful donation. It is proudly on display at the Glacier County Historical Museum.
Friday, February 10, 2006
SOUTHWEST ART, February, 2006
SOUTHWEST ART: Fine Art of Today’s West, Feb. 2006
A flip-through. You need your own mag so I won’t get into trouble for scanning.
This is the “Tenth Annual Landscape Issue,” so no wonder I really liked it! The only thing I like better than landscape is land! But relax, there is the usual quota of 19th century Native American images, much as it makes NA’s sigh into their coffee cups.
Terpening: p. 32. “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” sold for $478,000. (Settlers West Galleries’ Great American West show -- total sales more than $1.l million. 75 of 109 available works sold. Also Robert Griffing’s “At the Water’s Edge” went for $42,000; “Distant Smoke” by Roy Andersen went for $35,000; and Bob Kuhn’s “Curiosity Fed the Cat” sold at $21,000.) p. 81 “Captured from General Crook’s Command,” “Plunder from Sonora,” and “Camp at Cougar’s Den.” These are Greenwich Workshop Giclees. p. 160 Another “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” and an ad for a book. Pour on the gas! These people are not afraid of overexposure!
Birds: P. 33 a little flock in brush, a bronze at the Karin Nwby Gallery.
Cafes: p.37 Two by Leslie Sandbulte, lovely satires of a “Tea Party” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” P. 66. Linda Keyser Smith does something similar with “The Chill Is Gone,” a fur-embellished lady who appears to be thawing over a greenish drink. P. 68 Andre Kohn is not sure this one is a lady: “Martini, Dirty, Two Olives.”
Entrances: p. 76, an urban one by Michael Shankman, from up high, prob’ly SF judging from the tilt of the street. p. 90 I particularly like this Michael Shankman SF corner dive storefront. Also, the p. 93 juxtaposition of old and new in “New Mission.” p. 140 Carol Hopper’s “Sunset at Tuscany Stables.” p. 155 Wiliam Haskell’s “End of Season,” a classic front porch.
Expressionist and almost abstract landscapes:
p. 80 “Soft Tabs by Christopher St. Leger. It’s Houston at night. Much as people may mock glass envelope skyscrapers, this vision is transcendent. Actually the whole issue is just crammed with gorgeous, nearly abstract, fauvistically colored paintings. I love them all. (I also love the Western homesteads done realistically.)
Condos, clubs, resorts and fancy hotels are advertising in this mag. Looks like there’s still a lot of money in the “New West” lifestyle.
The paintings of Nick Kosciuk are NOT landscapes, so I’m not sure how they got in this issue, but they ae remarkable. There’s a whole article explaining his paintings of “Angels and Orphans” from Eastern Europe. Children with monarch butterfy wings perched on windowsills, or with haloes -- holding out hands without stigmata -- or just curled together defensively. On p. 140 a girl on one foot in front of a blackboard that says “mama.”
Connie Borup in Utah is a whole ‘nother story, making mosaic and carved screens of ordinary leafy branches and sometimes showing through them the landscape or just the sky.
p. 120 Elaine Holien throws orange, sienna and purple togther, adds a slash of blue and calls it a landscape -- which it is.
p. 141 Ad for Dave Powell whom I must mention since I’ve known him since he was a button. He’s in Cowboy Artists of America now. His “Pa,” Ace Powell, would be proud.
p. 151 Gregory Reade’s powerful bronze called “Chain of Success: Mentor.” I’m not sure what it’s about, but it’s beautiful. I’m also not sure why people have stopped making bronzes -- at least I see far fewer in the mags and shows. Maybe the proliferation of a lot of second rate stuff when casting became cheap and easy due to silicon slurry investment? Maybe the effort and expense of even cheap sculpture? Or is the problem with knockoffs and counterfeits?
A flip-through. You need your own mag so I won’t get into trouble for scanning.
This is the “Tenth Annual Landscape Issue,” so no wonder I really liked it! The only thing I like better than landscape is land! But relax, there is the usual quota of 19th century Native American images, much as it makes NA’s sigh into their coffee cups.
Terpening: p. 32. “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” sold for $478,000. (Settlers West Galleries’ Great American West show -- total sales more than $1.l million. 75 of 109 available works sold. Also Robert Griffing’s “At the Water’s Edge” went for $42,000; “Distant Smoke” by Roy Andersen went for $35,000; and Bob Kuhn’s “Curiosity Fed the Cat” sold at $21,000.) p. 81 “Captured from General Crook’s Command,” “Plunder from Sonora,” and “Camp at Cougar’s Den.” These are Greenwich Workshop Giclees. p. 160 Another “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” and an ad for a book. Pour on the gas! These people are not afraid of overexposure!
Birds: P. 33 a little flock in brush, a bronze at the Karin Nwby Gallery.
Cafes: p.37 Two by Leslie Sandbulte, lovely satires of a “Tea Party” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” P. 66. Linda Keyser Smith does something similar with “The Chill Is Gone,” a fur-embellished lady who appears to be thawing over a greenish drink. P. 68 Andre Kohn is not sure this one is a lady: “Martini, Dirty, Two Olives.”
Entrances: p. 76, an urban one by Michael Shankman, from up high, prob’ly SF judging from the tilt of the street. p. 90 I particularly like this Michael Shankman SF corner dive storefront. Also, the p. 93 juxtaposition of old and new in “New Mission.” p. 140 Carol Hopper’s “Sunset at Tuscany Stables.” p. 155 Wiliam Haskell’s “End of Season,” a classic front porch.
Expressionist and almost abstract landscapes:
p. 80 “Soft Tabs by Christopher St. Leger. It’s Houston at night. Much as people may mock glass envelope skyscrapers, this vision is transcendent. Actually the whole issue is just crammed with gorgeous, nearly abstract, fauvistically colored paintings. I love them all. (I also love the Western homesteads done realistically.)
Condos, clubs, resorts and fancy hotels are advertising in this mag. Looks like there’s still a lot of money in the “New West” lifestyle.
The paintings of Nick Kosciuk are NOT landscapes, so I’m not sure how they got in this issue, but they ae remarkable. There’s a whole article explaining his paintings of “Angels and Orphans” from Eastern Europe. Children with monarch butterfy wings perched on windowsills, or with haloes -- holding out hands without stigmata -- or just curled together defensively. On p. 140 a girl on one foot in front of a blackboard that says “mama.”
Connie Borup in Utah is a whole ‘nother story, making mosaic and carved screens of ordinary leafy branches and sometimes showing through them the landscape or just the sky.
p. 120 Elaine Holien throws orange, sienna and purple togther, adds a slash of blue and calls it a landscape -- which it is.
p. 141 Ad for Dave Powell whom I must mention since I’ve known him since he was a button. He’s in Cowboy Artists of America now. His “Pa,” Ace Powell, would be proud.
p. 151 Gregory Reade’s powerful bronze called “Chain of Success: Mentor.” I’m not sure what it’s about, but it’s beautiful. I’m also not sure why people have stopped making bronzes -- at least I see far fewer in the mags and shows. Maybe the proliferation of a lot of second rate stuff when casting became cheap and easy due to silicon slurry investment? Maybe the effort and expense of even cheap sculpture? Or is the problem with knockoffs and counterfeits?
Friday, February 03, 2006
ALL HAT AND NO PAINTING
From the NYTimes: “New York State has imposed a moratorium on new commercial colleges in the state, in the face of explosive growth in their enrollments and increasing reports of problems.” These schools are consuming more than $100 million in state aid. With so many young people believing that they’d better find a way to make a lot of money quickly, schools other than the academic are promising results. These schools include art schools. Art as business.
For a long time “abstract” has almost defined expensive art -- the Picasso/Pollock complex. But all the time, in the background, representational art has gone along on its own track -- both as illustrations in magazines and in the field of Western art. Many of the most famous Western artists are in fact illustrators from an earlier time. Howard Terpning is predicted to be the first living Western artist to be paid a million dollars for a painting. Though he sells in the hundreds of thousands of dollars now, a million is still a little optimistic. He has also “home schooled” two daughters into high-priced artists.
With Western art auctions handling something approaching sixty million dollars a year and such news as Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of George Washington selling for 21.3 million dollars, the attention of many people is attracted. The image of the impoverished artist wavers a bit. Painting doesn’t seem so hard -- maybe a few lessons. Not much expensive equipment needed. You can do it at home on your own time. Just paint what you see, right?
In academic circles it may still be hard to find teachers and courses that are more than theory and experiment suitable for abstractions. But there ARE commercial art schools that teach a person to paint realistically with sophistication. In fact, Terpning originally studied at the American Academy of Art, which was founded by an advertising man named Frank Young in the early 20th century specifically to train commercial artists who could do layouts and so on. Young charged low tuitions because he needed the talent to be there to do advertising work, his main income.
By the time Frank Young had passed on and his school had been passed down through the generations, the tuition was four or five thousand dollars a year. But then the school was sold to someone who was interested in the school as his profit base: the tuition went to $13,000 a year. The tuition is now $27,000 a year. And they get it. There is no academic degree now, but the school has realized that if they include a minimal number of math and lit classes, they can qualify for receiving student loan money from the government. Hello, New York!!
Down through the ages, would-be artists have gotten their educations by attaching to a “master” and following him (usually male) around in a studio or atelier until they’ve learned the basics -- maybe even done some of the prep and background work for the master. But now many successful artists are not entirely willing to accept apprentices. The more popular pattern is the painting workshop in some attractive spot where the students pay a lot of money for an accomplished artist to teach them for a few weeks. Some artists spend as much money scouting locations and making arrangements for housing, etc., as they do actually painting and teaching, but they clear hundreds of thousands of dollars. And maybe they pick up some good customer or gallery contacts.
Another model is that of the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art. (www.paletteandchisel.org) For $400 a year you can attend open, uninstructed studio sessions with live models. Instruction is in addition, maybe $20-$25 per student per session for ten weeks. This approach is recommended by Brian Minder (blog at www.breakfastinthefields.blogspot.com with examples of his painting). Brian is a civil engineer part of the week in order to pay for being an artist the rest of the week. He is totally opposed to going into debt, having seen too many people crash and burn.
Brian’s hero is a painter named Richard Schmid, who is sometimes presented as a Western artist. Schmid -- in a world where many artists think only of their income -- has been generous with his help and support for artists at the Palette and Chisel, which has created a kind of “school” or “group” that paints together and keeps up with each other. Brian names Clayton Beck, Dan Gerhartz, Nancy Guzik, Rose Frantsen, Scott Burdick, Susan Lyon, Ken Cadwallader, Romel de la Torre. No tuition was involved. (Note women are included.)
In addition, Schmid has written a number of books, one of the most significant being Alla Prima: Everything I know About Painting (ISBN: 0966211715). A used copy of this one will sent you back $300 on Abebooks.com, but artists say it is a key source of advice. There are also Schmid books on landscape and on nudes and many artists do DVD’s (rather than tape cassettes) that are demonstrations. I’ll append an account of the annual Schmid Auction in Bellvue, Colorado, where he used to live. It’s a benefit for the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department that raised $265,000 last September. (He lives in New Hampshire now.)
But there are not enough Richard Schmids to go around all the anxious and aspiring wannabe artists who run up huge debts at commercial art schools without any promise at all that they will be able to earn a living, much less pay back the thousands of dollars. The more who read about the money a Schmid or Terpning can make, the more who fantasize about their own future, the more the field is crowded with competition. Despite their dreams and hard work (and not all work that hard) in the end they may need to assume a new identity or emigrate to a new country or take bankruptcy.
Bob Scriver and I used to talk about the two kinds of artists. One sort loved being an artist and had the studio, the costume and the palaver all ready to go. You might say they were “all hat and no painting” after the cowboy who was “all hat and no cattle.” Painting, to them, was a kind of lifestyle. The other kind just wanted to paint -- didn’t care where or how so long as they were warm and fed. These are the ones who eventually are worth a lot of money.
Art today is often judged by its price -- the public seems to believe that a painting that auctions for a lot of money is a better painting than one that doesn’t meet its withholding price. In the past, valuing art was put into the hands of authorities -- professors and professionals who spent time reflecting upon and defending aesthetic standards. The danger then was that the view became narrower and narrower until art began to asphyxiate in the repetition and tight boundaries. Eventually, that triggers a counter-phenomenon like the wild explosion of energy and experiment at the beginning of the 20th century.
This is the way Minder’s reflections go: “The problem is that everybody thinks that they are the “One,” that they have a chance at greatness. There is no humility and very little of the idea that you may love the arts and even be competent in one of them, but you still have to step aside for others who are more talented. Or that you may have to make sacrifices in the material world to satisfy what uplifts you spiritually.”
This is from Art of the West magazine, Jan/Feb. 2006:
SCHMID AUCTION BREAKS RECORDS
Art lovers from throughout the country spent a record-setting $265,000 on paintings and sculptures at the 10th Annual Richard Schmid Auction in Bellvue, Colorado, last September. Proceeds from the auction help to suport the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, which depends entirely on donations to protect the homes and people in more than 100 square miles west of Fort Collins.
The one-day event culminated in Schmid’s Whetstone Brook oil painting selling for $80,000. Another of his paintings, Roses, sold for $20,000. Other top-selling artists included Schmid’s daughter, Molly Schmid, Nancy Guzik, Rod Salter, Nancy Seamore Crookston, C. Michael Dudash, and Joseph Todorovitch. They joined 137 other artists who participated in the live and silent auctions.
’This is America at its best,’ Schmid said as he watched the art auction. ‘It is amazing how the power of art can unite a community.’
Wes Rutt, president of the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, said, ‘Our record-setting results confirm that this event has become one of the most anticipated and well-attended art auctions in the West. Since our fire department receives no tax dollars, it is Richard Schmid, the talented artists throughout the country, their generous patrons, and everyone who attends the auction who deserve credit for making our volunteer fire deparment one of the best in the state.’
The fire department will put the net proceeds of more than $129,000 towards the purchase of a fire truck that can spray fire-retardant foam on homes.
For a long time “abstract” has almost defined expensive art -- the Picasso/Pollock complex. But all the time, in the background, representational art has gone along on its own track -- both as illustrations in magazines and in the field of Western art. Many of the most famous Western artists are in fact illustrators from an earlier time. Howard Terpning is predicted to be the first living Western artist to be paid a million dollars for a painting. Though he sells in the hundreds of thousands of dollars now, a million is still a little optimistic. He has also “home schooled” two daughters into high-priced artists.
With Western art auctions handling something approaching sixty million dollars a year and such news as Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of George Washington selling for 21.3 million dollars, the attention of many people is attracted. The image of the impoverished artist wavers a bit. Painting doesn’t seem so hard -- maybe a few lessons. Not much expensive equipment needed. You can do it at home on your own time. Just paint what you see, right?
In academic circles it may still be hard to find teachers and courses that are more than theory and experiment suitable for abstractions. But there ARE commercial art schools that teach a person to paint realistically with sophistication. In fact, Terpning originally studied at the American Academy of Art, which was founded by an advertising man named Frank Young in the early 20th century specifically to train commercial artists who could do layouts and so on. Young charged low tuitions because he needed the talent to be there to do advertising work, his main income.
By the time Frank Young had passed on and his school had been passed down through the generations, the tuition was four or five thousand dollars a year. But then the school was sold to someone who was interested in the school as his profit base: the tuition went to $13,000 a year. The tuition is now $27,000 a year. And they get it. There is no academic degree now, but the school has realized that if they include a minimal number of math and lit classes, they can qualify for receiving student loan money from the government. Hello, New York!!
Down through the ages, would-be artists have gotten their educations by attaching to a “master” and following him (usually male) around in a studio or atelier until they’ve learned the basics -- maybe even done some of the prep and background work for the master. But now many successful artists are not entirely willing to accept apprentices. The more popular pattern is the painting workshop in some attractive spot where the students pay a lot of money for an accomplished artist to teach them for a few weeks. Some artists spend as much money scouting locations and making arrangements for housing, etc., as they do actually painting and teaching, but they clear hundreds of thousands of dollars. And maybe they pick up some good customer or gallery contacts.
Another model is that of the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art. (www.paletteandchisel.org) For $400 a year you can attend open, uninstructed studio sessions with live models. Instruction is in addition, maybe $20-$25 per student per session for ten weeks. This approach is recommended by Brian Minder (blog at www.breakfastinthefields.blogspot.com with examples of his painting). Brian is a civil engineer part of the week in order to pay for being an artist the rest of the week. He is totally opposed to going into debt, having seen too many people crash and burn.
Brian’s hero is a painter named Richard Schmid, who is sometimes presented as a Western artist. Schmid -- in a world where many artists think only of their income -- has been generous with his help and support for artists at the Palette and Chisel, which has created a kind of “school” or “group” that paints together and keeps up with each other. Brian names Clayton Beck, Dan Gerhartz, Nancy Guzik, Rose Frantsen, Scott Burdick, Susan Lyon, Ken Cadwallader, Romel de la Torre. No tuition was involved. (Note women are included.)
In addition, Schmid has written a number of books, one of the most significant being Alla Prima: Everything I know About Painting (ISBN: 0966211715). A used copy of this one will sent you back $300 on Abebooks.com, but artists say it is a key source of advice. There are also Schmid books on landscape and on nudes and many artists do DVD’s (rather than tape cassettes) that are demonstrations. I’ll append an account of the annual Schmid Auction in Bellvue, Colorado, where he used to live. It’s a benefit for the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department that raised $265,000 last September. (He lives in New Hampshire now.)
But there are not enough Richard Schmids to go around all the anxious and aspiring wannabe artists who run up huge debts at commercial art schools without any promise at all that they will be able to earn a living, much less pay back the thousands of dollars. The more who read about the money a Schmid or Terpning can make, the more who fantasize about their own future, the more the field is crowded with competition. Despite their dreams and hard work (and not all work that hard) in the end they may need to assume a new identity or emigrate to a new country or take bankruptcy.
Bob Scriver and I used to talk about the two kinds of artists. One sort loved being an artist and had the studio, the costume and the palaver all ready to go. You might say they were “all hat and no painting” after the cowboy who was “all hat and no cattle.” Painting, to them, was a kind of lifestyle. The other kind just wanted to paint -- didn’t care where or how so long as they were warm and fed. These are the ones who eventually are worth a lot of money.
Art today is often judged by its price -- the public seems to believe that a painting that auctions for a lot of money is a better painting than one that doesn’t meet its withholding price. In the past, valuing art was put into the hands of authorities -- professors and professionals who spent time reflecting upon and defending aesthetic standards. The danger then was that the view became narrower and narrower until art began to asphyxiate in the repetition and tight boundaries. Eventually, that triggers a counter-phenomenon like the wild explosion of energy and experiment at the beginning of the 20th century.
This is the way Minder’s reflections go: “The problem is that everybody thinks that they are the “One,” that they have a chance at greatness. There is no humility and very little of the idea that you may love the arts and even be competent in one of them, but you still have to step aside for others who are more talented. Or that you may have to make sacrifices in the material world to satisfy what uplifts you spiritually.”
This is from Art of the West magazine, Jan/Feb. 2006:
SCHMID AUCTION BREAKS RECORDS
Art lovers from throughout the country spent a record-setting $265,000 on paintings and sculptures at the 10th Annual Richard Schmid Auction in Bellvue, Colorado, last September. Proceeds from the auction help to suport the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, which depends entirely on donations to protect the homes and people in more than 100 square miles west of Fort Collins.
The one-day event culminated in Schmid’s Whetstone Brook oil painting selling for $80,000. Another of his paintings, Roses, sold for $20,000. Other top-selling artists included Schmid’s daughter, Molly Schmid, Nancy Guzik, Rod Salter, Nancy Seamore Crookston, C. Michael Dudash, and Joseph Todorovitch. They joined 137 other artists who participated in the live and silent auctions.
’This is America at its best,’ Schmid said as he watched the art auction. ‘It is amazing how the power of art can unite a community.’
Wes Rutt, president of the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department, said, ‘Our record-setting results confirm that this event has become one of the most anticipated and well-attended art auctions in the West. Since our fire department receives no tax dollars, it is Richard Schmid, the talented artists throughout the country, their generous patrons, and everyone who attends the auction who deserve credit for making our volunteer fire deparment one of the best in the state.’
The fire department will put the net proceeds of more than $129,000 towards the purchase of a fire truck that can spray fire-retardant foam on homes.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Temporary Blogger Standdown
The blogger has had to regroup and take a few days of “stand-down” to retool. In simple terms I’ve just been diagnosed with Type II diabetes, which means a major change in habits and a huge jump in the attention that has to be paid to eating and exercising. I’m making big charts -- then revising them. I’m supposed to take daily blood pressures, twice-daily blood sugar readings, and a half-hour of walking or the equivalent. (What IS the equivalent to a half-hour of walking?) But it’s working. My blood sugar sank from 200 (very high) to 100 (tolerable) in 24 hours. It’s like cotton candy melting out of my brain. I feel better and I didn’t even realize I didn’t feel good.
Being my father’s daughter (my father believed the world could be saved by Popular Mechanics and self-help books), I had at hand some books to guide me. I’ll list them in case you need something similar. I got them from Hamilton remainders online, whose inventory changes all the time. Maybe there’s something new and better by now.
RESOURCES:
“THE GOOD NEWS EATING PLAN for Type II Diabetes” by Elaine Magee. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
“THE GOOD CARB COOKBOOK: Secrets of Eating Low on the Glycemic Index” by Sandra Woodruff. Penguin Putnam, 2001.
“THE DIABETIC’S BRAND NAME FOOD EXCHANGE HANDBOOK” BY CLARA G. Schneider. Running Press, 1991.
Some time ago I read an article that claimed if a person who had gone slightly to seed in late middle-age or early old-age really got with the program, ten years could be restored to their health. All the years of not drinking/not smoking should count for something.
But there is nothing to be done about my posture from hunching over a keyboard all these years -- well, unless I got hip to podcasts!
Being my father’s daughter (my father believed the world could be saved by Popular Mechanics and self-help books), I had at hand some books to guide me. I’ll list them in case you need something similar. I got them from Hamilton remainders online, whose inventory changes all the time. Maybe there’s something new and better by now.
RESOURCES:
“THE GOOD NEWS EATING PLAN for Type II Diabetes” by Elaine Magee. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
“THE GOOD CARB COOKBOOK: Secrets of Eating Low on the Glycemic Index” by Sandra Woodruff. Penguin Putnam, 2001.
“THE DIABETIC’S BRAND NAME FOOD EXCHANGE HANDBOOK” BY CLARA G. Schneider. Running Press, 1991.
Some time ago I read an article that claimed if a person who had gone slightly to seed in late middle-age or early old-age really got with the program, ten years could be restored to their health. All the years of not drinking/not smoking should count for something.
But there is nothing to be done about my posture from hunching over a keyboard all these years -- well, unless I got hip to podcasts!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
INTERNATIONAL ARTIST.COM Dec/Jan 2006
This is a readalong review. It will make more sense if you have a copy of the mag at hand.
If “Southwest Art” and “Art of the West” are for the buyer and gallery owner, “International Artist.Com” is pitched at the artist his or her self. But since the articles discuss technical matters, they are an excellent way to learn more as a consumer as well. The other contrast is that this is an explicitly planet-wide mag, while SW Art is defining itself as “today’s West” and “Art of the West” speaks for itself. But since “International Artist” mostly deals with realistic landscape, still life and figures, most of it is relevant.
A quick exception might be (oh, not necessarily) Bruno Surdo’s “Re-Emergence of Venus” which is a fabulous near-fresco of the familiar “Venus on the Half-Shell” or more formally Botticelli’s “Emergence of Venus” -- she is supposed to rise from the sea, you know, except here it’s the sewer. All the mythological characters are translated into familiar wacky denizens of Chicago. A person could look at this for hours and still see new things. The org behind this mag gave it a $2,000 Grand Prize. Give the guy some MORE, somebody! I’m beginning to pay attention to people who have studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, as Surdo did, though former students say it’s not as good now.
Entrances: p. 15, Dean Mitchell’s “Down in the Quarter.” Let’s hope the place survived the New Orleans catastrophe. P.101 a near-monotone exotic stairway going up through an arch. Anna Sims of Dorset, England.
Eating establishments: p. 32 Actually this is just a photo of the Old Castle of the Smithsonian Institution, all ready for the annual Paul Beck Awards Banquet, but it is quite fabulous. p. 44 “Cafe in Amsterdam” by Richard Boyer. It’s on the river. P. 109 “My Friends” by Alexander Sergeeff is a funky place where friends do talk. In South Africa, Charles van der Merwe does pastels as follows: p. 134 A deli where a girl stubbornly reads her book outside. Also, “The Morning News” where people hurry past a table where a man lingers over his newspaper. P. 135 An elegant woman indoors alone. A woman in a long skirt drinking a cup of coffee in an empty room (actually a model taking a break.) p. 139 a woman waits at an unset table.
Nice overview article on Andrew Wyeth with old familiar pictures and some new ones. “Otherworld 2002” is an almost sci-fi view of the deluxe interior of a private plane with round portholes, through which we see Wyeth’s more familiar buildings on the ground. A very white picture.
I love the filigree level of detail in Jane Freeman’s flower portraits. They’re watercolors, very pink-and-orange, and the “Spanish Gold” onions look as glamorous as the Stargazer lilies.
p. 100 Norbert Baird of Arizona paints old abandoned machinery with beautiful results: cogs and wheels that look like flowers.
p. 106 Alexander Sergeeff paints what he calls “Inhabited Sculpture” which just means high-grade furniture in elegant surrounds.
According to Southwest Art, Harley Brown has joined CAA -- I guess I thought he already belonged. Anyway, he’s got a nice article here about how to paint, using a couple of Indians -- in Peru. He’s informal, blunt, and you’ll probably never get better advice if you’re an artist.
Except that Australian Graeme Smith’s article “5 Ways to Earn More Money” is also brisk: 1. work more hours, 2. produce more, 3. Get paid more, 4. Get others to work for you and 5. Sell your intellectual property as opposed to your time. He suggests teaching or writing. What about hooking up with a Giclee print maker? Big money but I’d be cautious.
The ads include ingenious ways to get your gear to the field or your rear on an airplane for a painting holiday. One has visions of camaraderie and a whole new approach to subject matter but unless one is the teacher, it must cost like the devil. Anyway, this follows the plein air idea of evading the studio and going outside.
If “Southwest Art” and “Art of the West” are for the buyer and gallery owner, “International Artist.Com” is pitched at the artist his or her self. But since the articles discuss technical matters, they are an excellent way to learn more as a consumer as well. The other contrast is that this is an explicitly planet-wide mag, while SW Art is defining itself as “today’s West” and “Art of the West” speaks for itself. But since “International Artist” mostly deals with realistic landscape, still life and figures, most of it is relevant.
A quick exception might be (oh, not necessarily) Bruno Surdo’s “Re-Emergence of Venus” which is a fabulous near-fresco of the familiar “Venus on the Half-Shell” or more formally Botticelli’s “Emergence of Venus” -- she is supposed to rise from the sea, you know, except here it’s the sewer. All the mythological characters are translated into familiar wacky denizens of Chicago. A person could look at this for hours and still see new things. The org behind this mag gave it a $2,000 Grand Prize. Give the guy some MORE, somebody! I’m beginning to pay attention to people who have studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, as Surdo did, though former students say it’s not as good now.
Entrances: p. 15, Dean Mitchell’s “Down in the Quarter.” Let’s hope the place survived the New Orleans catastrophe. P.101 a near-monotone exotic stairway going up through an arch. Anna Sims of Dorset, England.
Eating establishments: p. 32 Actually this is just a photo of the Old Castle of the Smithsonian Institution, all ready for the annual Paul Beck Awards Banquet, but it is quite fabulous. p. 44 “Cafe in Amsterdam” by Richard Boyer. It’s on the river. P. 109 “My Friends” by Alexander Sergeeff is a funky place where friends do talk. In South Africa, Charles van der Merwe does pastels as follows: p. 134 A deli where a girl stubbornly reads her book outside. Also, “The Morning News” where people hurry past a table where a man lingers over his newspaper. P. 135 An elegant woman indoors alone. A woman in a long skirt drinking a cup of coffee in an empty room (actually a model taking a break.) p. 139 a woman waits at an unset table.
Nice overview article on Andrew Wyeth with old familiar pictures and some new ones. “Otherworld 2002” is an almost sci-fi view of the deluxe interior of a private plane with round portholes, through which we see Wyeth’s more familiar buildings on the ground. A very white picture.
I love the filigree level of detail in Jane Freeman’s flower portraits. They’re watercolors, very pink-and-orange, and the “Spanish Gold” onions look as glamorous as the Stargazer lilies.
p. 100 Norbert Baird of Arizona paints old abandoned machinery with beautiful results: cogs and wheels that look like flowers.
p. 106 Alexander Sergeeff paints what he calls “Inhabited Sculpture” which just means high-grade furniture in elegant surrounds.
According to Southwest Art, Harley Brown has joined CAA -- I guess I thought he already belonged. Anyway, he’s got a nice article here about how to paint, using a couple of Indians -- in Peru. He’s informal, blunt, and you’ll probably never get better advice if you’re an artist.
Except that Australian Graeme Smith’s article “5 Ways to Earn More Money” is also brisk: 1. work more hours, 2. produce more, 3. Get paid more, 4. Get others to work for you and 5. Sell your intellectual property as opposed to your time. He suggests teaching or writing. What about hooking up with a Giclee print maker? Big money but I’d be cautious.
The ads include ingenious ways to get your gear to the field or your rear on an airplane for a painting holiday. One has visions of camaraderie and a whole new approach to subject matter but unless one is the teacher, it must cost like the devil. Anyway, this follows the plein air idea of evading the studio and going outside.
"SOUTHWEST ART" January, 2006, issue
This is a read-along. To really get the benefit you need to have a copy of the mag by your computer.
January issues of mags tend to be slender. I’ve never known whether that was the result of having to compose the issue during December or slender ad revenue in January, but it clearly has something to do with the turn of the year.
This January’s Southwest Art has a smashing cover: a red-orange tipi with big gold stars (evidently floating just above the canvas surface since they cast shadows), behind it an incandescent strip of prairie and a purple ridge and sky. The artist is R. Tom Gilleon -- see his work at www.mtntrails.net or www.borsini-burr.com. He has two characteristic subjects: big, bright, fill-the-canvas tipis and grid paintings of 9-at-one-swat Indian portraits from photos. Gilleon is a Montana (ahem) artist who has a deep background in illustration for NASA, Disney, and etc. It shows. This is no self-taught kid off a ranch, though he lives on one now. On the other hand, his experience with the West is “secondary,” that it, based on the experience of others. When an artist has a cover, the interior characteristically includes ads for the same person. pp. 5, 87, 95, and 129 (just inside the back cover).
The most remarkable article (and one of a kind I would like to see more of, though I really buy the mag to keep my “eye” trained) is the one interviewing gallery owners about what’s happening. There are surprises: for instance, I’d heard grumbling about auctions and what it does to the galleries (siphons off business, distorts pricing), but it never occurred to me that the “plein air” movement applied to exhibitions outdoors as well. Of course, in Montana the weather (wind, cold, heat) kind of discourages such events anyway, but I would have thought that damage to paintings would have been a consideration even in the SW and California. Maybe the idea is to see them in actual outdoors light, as they were painted.
One dealer thought there were “thousands” of outdoor “plein air” events! They seem to include “art walks” where streets link galleries and studios so one can tour many at one time. But the ones I know (mostly Portland, OR) were at night and rather mingled with bar hopping. Seems like an event that would attract younger buyers. Some thought plein air as a painting movement and popular genre was past its peak.
Interestingly, most said their best-selling genre was, is and always will be landscape. Easy to understand out west where there’s even such a thing as “landscape rights,” that is, value that trumps industrial invasion. Only one person thought “cowboys and Indians” were rising as subject matter. One person thought it was “light” that counts -- bright cheerful subject matter. (Gilleon has it made!)
The other big influence on galleries is pretty tricky: e commerce. The owners estimated about ten percent of their business is sales from digital photos! But when it comes to artists who are selling from their own websites the legal protocol (to say nothing of developing conventions) is still loose and sometimes troublesome. The galleries, of course, want their websites linked and preferably a referral made for sales. They like the artist to establish a “personality” and selling points at the artists’ expense. In fact, I would say the main thing these gallery owners share is the idea that the artists exist merely to feed their work into the galleries. No talk about developing careers or serving the art world. Instead, it’s calling the artist up to leave off painting and come to the gallery on a moment’s notice to greet a prospective customer. Mark Smith in San Antonio said, “We can’t accept an artist, be committed, and promote them if they can’t be 100 percent committed to us.” I thought it was the other way around!
Another example of the commodification of people, particularly those who are creative. Their work is “product.” (Same thing happening with writing.) Shocking but not surprising. In fact, I think I’ll write a novel in which an artist is destroyed by these hangers-on and wheeler-dealers, because they all have lawyers on retainer and would attack anything fact-based. Corporate-minded wolves made possible by the huge number of people who really yearn to be artists and will put up with almost anything in order to survive. Nothing new or American about it.
That rant ends here.
I liked the five big brown horses running at the viewer on page 1. They’re in the fog, manes flying, and moving fast since the title is “Coming Back.” (You could ride my old brown horse in any direction for hours and be back in twenty minutes.)
Cafe portraits: P. 4, a child by Tom Balderas -- sunshine, a striped shirt. Most likely at home. P. 32, a professional chef seen from outside. Susan Romaine. (Do these count?)
Entrances: P. 32. Two here: one a back way into a tin-top shed and the other a shadowed town alley. Both Susan Romaine -- very clean, high contrast. P. 96 Another Susan Romaine: small town store fronts cast iron alongside art deco. p. 120 store fronts “Lunch Cafe” by Red Rohall.
A favorite: p. 43, Maxine Graham Price “Golden Afternoon,” just the sort of brilliant landscape shading into abstract I love. It’s just a tiny reproduction in an ad, but I’ld like to try to copy it in paint just to absorb it more.
Who are you quoting? p. 121. Three red cats looking like Donna Howell-Sickles escapees.
Doing his own thing: p. 52 Rick Bartow has been defining his own terms for many years. He’s at the intersection of being a Viet vet and being a hunter in Oregon -- many antlers, strong dislocated men, a shaman overtone.
Terpening and clones: p.11 David Mann “Path of the Stolen Ponies;” p. 18 Terpning “Sunset for the Comanche,” p. 65 “Captured from General Crook’s Command,” “Plunder from Sonora” and “Camp at Cougar’s Den;” p. 100 a teeny version of “Camp at Cougar’s Den,” p. 128 by Jim C. Norton “Washing on Salt Creek” This won the Ray Swanson Memorial Award for “communicating a moment in time and capturing the emotion of that moment.” Huh? I thought that’s what all art did. This is a nice piece of narration -- Indians on horseback entering a stream where a woman and child have been doing the wash.
Most startling: p. 83, a human heart carved in wood and inlaid with silver (or so it appears) but with a blackened top. Wickedness? A heart attack? Beautiful and intriguing. A good runner-up is a humorous religious sculpture by Maryella Fetzer, “Jonah Spit from the Belly of the Whale.” He’s movin’ fast and has big feet. He’s gonna be awful sore in the morning. P. 115?
Nice portrait: p. 119 “Sky of Hearts” by Paul Cunningham.
Grid painting: Aside from Gilleon, abstract landscapes by James Lavadour: “Deep Moon.” P. 126 Cactus by Chris Hamman, I guess. Shortage of info.
Missing in action: What?? No Pino?
NO PHONY SE ASIA KNOCKOFFS OF BRONZES IN THE ADS!! YAY! HOORAY!
AUCTION HIGHS: Cowboy Artists of America (who seem to go by CA now, instead of CAA -- is this a drop in patriotism??) $2.3 million total. No mention of top individual prices.
Altermann $3.6 million. Joseph Henry Sharp’s “Chant to the Rain Gods” went for $219,500. The painting doesn’t even look like a Sharp to me, but I prefer his landscapes. G. Harvey’s “Twilight in the City” went for $214,000 and Clark Hulings’ “Flower Market at Aix en Provence” went for $192,000. Note there are no cowboys or Indians in these two high-dollar paintings.
January issues of mags tend to be slender. I’ve never known whether that was the result of having to compose the issue during December or slender ad revenue in January, but it clearly has something to do with the turn of the year.
This January’s Southwest Art has a smashing cover: a red-orange tipi with big gold stars (evidently floating just above the canvas surface since they cast shadows), behind it an incandescent strip of prairie and a purple ridge and sky. The artist is R. Tom Gilleon -- see his work at www.mtntrails.net or www.borsini-burr.com. He has two characteristic subjects: big, bright, fill-the-canvas tipis and grid paintings of 9-at-one-swat Indian portraits from photos. Gilleon is a Montana (ahem) artist who has a deep background in illustration for NASA, Disney, and etc. It shows. This is no self-taught kid off a ranch, though he lives on one now. On the other hand, his experience with the West is “secondary,” that it, based on the experience of others. When an artist has a cover, the interior characteristically includes ads for the same person. pp. 5, 87, 95, and 129 (just inside the back cover).
The most remarkable article (and one of a kind I would like to see more of, though I really buy the mag to keep my “eye” trained) is the one interviewing gallery owners about what’s happening. There are surprises: for instance, I’d heard grumbling about auctions and what it does to the galleries (siphons off business, distorts pricing), but it never occurred to me that the “plein air” movement applied to exhibitions outdoors as well. Of course, in Montana the weather (wind, cold, heat) kind of discourages such events anyway, but I would have thought that damage to paintings would have been a consideration even in the SW and California. Maybe the idea is to see them in actual outdoors light, as they were painted.
One dealer thought there were “thousands” of outdoor “plein air” events! They seem to include “art walks” where streets link galleries and studios so one can tour many at one time. But the ones I know (mostly Portland, OR) were at night and rather mingled with bar hopping. Seems like an event that would attract younger buyers. Some thought plein air as a painting movement and popular genre was past its peak.
Interestingly, most said their best-selling genre was, is and always will be landscape. Easy to understand out west where there’s even such a thing as “landscape rights,” that is, value that trumps industrial invasion. Only one person thought “cowboys and Indians” were rising as subject matter. One person thought it was “light” that counts -- bright cheerful subject matter. (Gilleon has it made!)
The other big influence on galleries is pretty tricky: e commerce. The owners estimated about ten percent of their business is sales from digital photos! But when it comes to artists who are selling from their own websites the legal protocol (to say nothing of developing conventions) is still loose and sometimes troublesome. The galleries, of course, want their websites linked and preferably a referral made for sales. They like the artist to establish a “personality” and selling points at the artists’ expense. In fact, I would say the main thing these gallery owners share is the idea that the artists exist merely to feed their work into the galleries. No talk about developing careers or serving the art world. Instead, it’s calling the artist up to leave off painting and come to the gallery on a moment’s notice to greet a prospective customer. Mark Smith in San Antonio said, “We can’t accept an artist, be committed, and promote them if they can’t be 100 percent committed to us.” I thought it was the other way around!
Another example of the commodification of people, particularly those who are creative. Their work is “product.” (Same thing happening with writing.) Shocking but not surprising. In fact, I think I’ll write a novel in which an artist is destroyed by these hangers-on and wheeler-dealers, because they all have lawyers on retainer and would attack anything fact-based. Corporate-minded wolves made possible by the huge number of people who really yearn to be artists and will put up with almost anything in order to survive. Nothing new or American about it.
That rant ends here.
I liked the five big brown horses running at the viewer on page 1. They’re in the fog, manes flying, and moving fast since the title is “Coming Back.” (You could ride my old brown horse in any direction for hours and be back in twenty minutes.)
Cafe portraits: P. 4, a child by Tom Balderas -- sunshine, a striped shirt. Most likely at home. P. 32, a professional chef seen from outside. Susan Romaine. (Do these count?)
Entrances: P. 32. Two here: one a back way into a tin-top shed and the other a shadowed town alley. Both Susan Romaine -- very clean, high contrast. P. 96 Another Susan Romaine: small town store fronts cast iron alongside art deco. p. 120 store fronts “Lunch Cafe” by Red Rohall.
A favorite: p. 43, Maxine Graham Price “Golden Afternoon,” just the sort of brilliant landscape shading into abstract I love. It’s just a tiny reproduction in an ad, but I’ld like to try to copy it in paint just to absorb it more.
Who are you quoting? p. 121. Three red cats looking like Donna Howell-Sickles escapees.
Doing his own thing: p. 52 Rick Bartow has been defining his own terms for many years. He’s at the intersection of being a Viet vet and being a hunter in Oregon -- many antlers, strong dislocated men, a shaman overtone.
Terpening and clones: p.11 David Mann “Path of the Stolen Ponies;” p. 18 Terpning “Sunset for the Comanche,” p. 65 “Captured from General Crook’s Command,” “Plunder from Sonora” and “Camp at Cougar’s Den;” p. 100 a teeny version of “Camp at Cougar’s Den,” p. 128 by Jim C. Norton “Washing on Salt Creek” This won the Ray Swanson Memorial Award for “communicating a moment in time and capturing the emotion of that moment.” Huh? I thought that’s what all art did. This is a nice piece of narration -- Indians on horseback entering a stream where a woman and child have been doing the wash.
Most startling: p. 83, a human heart carved in wood and inlaid with silver (or so it appears) but with a blackened top. Wickedness? A heart attack? Beautiful and intriguing. A good runner-up is a humorous religious sculpture by Maryella Fetzer, “Jonah Spit from the Belly of the Whale.” He’s movin’ fast and has big feet. He’s gonna be awful sore in the morning. P. 115?
Nice portrait: p. 119 “Sky of Hearts” by Paul Cunningham.
Grid painting: Aside from Gilleon, abstract landscapes by James Lavadour: “Deep Moon.” P. 126 Cactus by Chris Hamman, I guess. Shortage of info.
Missing in action: What?? No Pino?
NO PHONY SE ASIA KNOCKOFFS OF BRONZES IN THE ADS!! YAY! HOORAY!
AUCTION HIGHS: Cowboy Artists of America (who seem to go by CA now, instead of CAA -- is this a drop in patriotism??) $2.3 million total. No mention of top individual prices.
Altermann $3.6 million. Joseph Henry Sharp’s “Chant to the Rain Gods” went for $219,500. The painting doesn’t even look like a Sharp to me, but I prefer his landscapes. G. Harvey’s “Twilight in the City” went for $214,000 and Clark Hulings’ “Flower Market at Aix en Provence” went for $192,000. Note there are no cowboys or Indians in these two high-dollar paintings.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Dale Burk and Northern Plains Art
Dale Burk and his brother Stoney (who is my lawyer) are examples of the intelligent, educated, resilient outdoorsmen who were reared on the East Slope of the Rockies. Stoney was a jet fighter pilot for 17 years, is a staunch defender of the Right to Bear Arms, and does a lot of pro bono work for environmental groups. In the beginning he helped Dale get started, which accounts for the name of Dale's press: Stoneydale. Stoney is on the edge of retirement and wants to learn to paint.
Dale's press (actually, I should say that it is emphatically his wife Patricia's press as well) is focused on hunting and fishing, with a bit of history and maybe some cooking. Before he had a press he was a writer and reporter, receiving a Nieman Fellowship for Professional Journalists for 1975-76 at Harvard.
In 1969 Dale published "New Interpretations," a book of essays about 22 Montana artists, which I will list because people are now looking for information about many of these people. (If this describes yourself, you might check AskArt.com, which maintains a humonguous database.) An asterisk marks those who are deceased:
*Ace Powell (1912- 1978)
*Leroy Greene (1893 - 1978)
*Albert Racine
*Branson Stevenson
Elmer Sprunger (1919 - )
*Irvin “Shorty” Shope (1900 - 1975)
*Bob Scriver (1914 - 1999)
Fred Fellows (1934 - )
*Elizabeth Lochrie (1890 - 1981)
*J. K. Ralston (1896 - 1987)
*Hugh Hockaday (1892 - 1968)
Les Welliver (1920 - )
Bob Morgan (1929 - )
Gary Schildt (1938 - )
*Merle Olson (1910 - )
Bob Emerson
Stan Lynde (1931 -
Les Peters (1916 - )
*John Clarke (1881 - 1970)
Jim Haughey
*Leo Beaulaurier (1911 - 1984)
Rex Rieke
Some of these may also be deceased, but I just don't know it. When I joined Bob Scriver in 1961, these were the Montana artists who were at their peak and selling well. They ranged in style and socioeconomics all over the place. Al Racine was a Blackfeet contemporary with Bob, Branson Stevenson and Leroy Greene were patricians, John Clarke was also a Blackfeet but one who already belonged to history, Elizabeth Lochrie was a student of Winold Reiss, Hugh Hockaday now has a museum named for him, Bob Morgan has become a kind of guiding saint in Helena, as Ace Powell was in those days in Hungry Horse, Fred Fellows is still working but has gone back to the warm weather in the southwest, and Stan Lynde is as handsome and gracious as ever, still turning out fine work -- and so on.
If I had to name the major Western artists -- or even just the Montana artists today, I wouldn't know where to go for a definitive list. There are hordes of artists, many doing exceptional work, almost too many to cram into the motel that hosts the annual C.M. Russell Western Art Auction in March. (You might start checking their website -- the jurors have done their work for this year: chosen the paintings and assigned the prizes.) In fact, this auction has had a lot to do with inspiring so many artists, and so did Burk's book profiling these early standout people.
Dale Burk's second book is more analytical. "A Brush with the West" begins with a discussion of how the Northern Rockies has a mystical presence and romantic history. Then he reviews some of the early artists -- not just Charley Russell, who dominates all conversations, but also Catlin, Bodmer, Rungius, Schreyvogel and so on. He tells how people developed realistic art in a time when the Easterners were still 'wrastling with stuff that didn't look like anything. Then the galvanic shock of losing the Russell Mint Collection to an out-of-state buyer suddenly woke Montana to the fact that the larger world had been thinking about Western art after all. The rest of the book discusses the shaping forces that have brought us to the present art scene.
Watch Stoneydale Press for reissues of these books. Otherwise, one must keep checking such online used book sources as Powells.com, Abebooks.com, and Alibris.com.
"New Interpretations" by Dale A. Burk, 1969. Library of Congress Cat.Card No. 82-99859
"A Brush with the West" by Dale A. Burk, 1980. ISBN 0-87842-133-5
(I apologize for writing my name on the front of "New Interpretations." I was afraid it would sprout legs and walk off. These are working books and I pack them around with me.)
www.stoneydalepress.com
Stevensville, MT 59870
Dale's press (actually, I should say that it is emphatically his wife Patricia's press as well) is focused on hunting and fishing, with a bit of history and maybe some cooking. Before he had a press he was a writer and reporter, receiving a Nieman Fellowship for Professional Journalists for 1975-76 at Harvard.
In 1969 Dale published "New Interpretations," a book of essays about 22 Montana artists, which I will list because people are now looking for information about many of these people. (If this describes yourself, you might check AskArt.com, which maintains a humonguous database.) An asterisk marks those who are deceased:
*Ace Powell (1912- 1978)
*Leroy Greene (1893 - 1978)
*Albert Racine
*Branson Stevenson
Elmer Sprunger (1919 - )
*Irvin “Shorty” Shope (1900 - 1975)
*Bob Scriver (1914 - 1999)
Fred Fellows (1934 - )
*Elizabeth Lochrie (1890 - 1981)
*J. K. Ralston (1896 - 1987)
*Hugh Hockaday (1892 - 1968)
Les Welliver (1920 - )
Bob Morgan (1929 - )
Gary Schildt (1938 - )
*Merle Olson (1910 - )
Bob Emerson
Stan Lynde (1931 -
Les Peters (1916 - )
*John Clarke (1881 - 1970)
Jim Haughey
*Leo Beaulaurier (1911 - 1984)
Rex Rieke
Some of these may also be deceased, but I just don't know it. When I joined Bob Scriver in 1961, these were the Montana artists who were at their peak and selling well. They ranged in style and socioeconomics all over the place. Al Racine was a Blackfeet contemporary with Bob, Branson Stevenson and Leroy Greene were patricians, John Clarke was also a Blackfeet but one who already belonged to history, Elizabeth Lochrie was a student of Winold Reiss, Hugh Hockaday now has a museum named for him, Bob Morgan has become a kind of guiding saint in Helena, as Ace Powell was in those days in Hungry Horse, Fred Fellows is still working but has gone back to the warm weather in the southwest, and Stan Lynde is as handsome and gracious as ever, still turning out fine work -- and so on.
If I had to name the major Western artists -- or even just the Montana artists today, I wouldn't know where to go for a definitive list. There are hordes of artists, many doing exceptional work, almost too many to cram into the motel that hosts the annual C.M. Russell Western Art Auction in March. (You might start checking their website -- the jurors have done their work for this year: chosen the paintings and assigned the prizes.) In fact, this auction has had a lot to do with inspiring so many artists, and so did Burk's book profiling these early standout people.
Dale Burk's second book is more analytical. "A Brush with the West" begins with a discussion of how the Northern Rockies has a mystical presence and romantic history. Then he reviews some of the early artists -- not just Charley Russell, who dominates all conversations, but also Catlin, Bodmer, Rungius, Schreyvogel and so on. He tells how people developed realistic art in a time when the Easterners were still 'wrastling with stuff that didn't look like anything. Then the galvanic shock of losing the Russell Mint Collection to an out-of-state buyer suddenly woke Montana to the fact that the larger world had been thinking about Western art after all. The rest of the book discusses the shaping forces that have brought us to the present art scene.
Watch Stoneydale Press for reissues of these books. Otherwise, one must keep checking such online used book sources as Powells.com, Abebooks.com, and Alibris.com.
"New Interpretations" by Dale A. Burk, 1969. Library of Congress Cat.Card No. 82-99859
"A Brush with the West" by Dale A. Burk, 1980. ISBN 0-87842-133-5
(I apologize for writing my name on the front of "New Interpretations." I was afraid it would sprout legs and walk off. These are working books and I pack them around with me.)
www.stoneydalepress.com
Stevensville, MT 59870
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
"The Bronco Buster"
This Remington bronze is so emblematic of Western bronzes in general that it is worth pondering for a moment. This photo is from a 1996 Mongerson/Wunderlich Gallery catalogue. The gallery was in Chicago and was linked to a different Mongerson and Wunderlich partnership, which was the marriage of the two parties. Previously, Rudi Wunderlich had been a co-owner of the Kennedy Galleries in New York City, one of the most important galleries handling Western art. For instance, they were Harry Jackson's gallery. As far as I can tell, the Mongerson/Wunderlich Gallery is currently in limbo.
This is what Rudi says about this bronze: "Many of the period sculptures had their bronzes cast at Bertelli's Roman Bronze Works. Remington's first bronze and signature piece, Bronco Buster, was cast first with the sand casting method by Henry-Bonnard Foundry. We know of 64 casts produced by this method. Then Remington went with Bertelli to Roman Bronze Works of which approximately 90 casts were produced before Remington's death."
This photo is of cast #144. If the same mold was used straight through, it would have lost a certain amount of detail. (More if the mold were made of traditional materials, less if the mold were made with modern materials, which it likely was not.) Remington is known to have enjoyed going to the foundry to work on the wax, sometimes making rather drastic changes -- moving arms, converting leather chaps to fur chaps and so on. In a sense, he was creating "one of a kind" bronzes. Otherwise, for modern sculptors there were an unusually large number of castings.
What confuses the issue is that this piece is so popular (one often sees a casting behind the President of the USA in the Oval Office) that many knock-offs have been made. The best would have been castings made from molds made from an original. The worst would be the ones made by SE Asia craftsmen working from photos. The cheapest ones are only a few hundred dollars, though their owners often believe they have "real" Remington castings.
But here's a problem no one anticipated: breaking a horse this way is now considered "cruel" by many people who have seen or read "The Horse Whisperer," so suddenly this bronze is "politically incorrect." Now what? Where is a bronze of a "horse whisperer?" Who would buy it?
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Art of the West, notes on Nov/Dec 2005
Yellow slickers: P. 21 Kelly Donovan’s “Easy Goin” -- horses crossing a river.p. 65. Packer on a white horse by Gary Lynn Roberts. All his primary riders look the same.
Eating places: Couldn’t see any. Maybe you can.
Doorways: p. 40 Schmid’s “Red Door II,” only 8”x7” but quite sophisticated composition of a European stone building with a fellow in a beret standiing outside reading the newspaper.
p. 58: Front door of the San Jose Church by Walt Gonske. Strong simple adobe lines against a dark blue sky.
Pino ad on page 19. I don’t know how to “do” links, but if you go to this URL: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/002311.html There’s an interesting discussion about Pino. He’s another of the paperback cover artists and illustrators (like Terpning and many others) who has moved over to easel painting.
Money reports:
Maynard Dixon Country 2005 gala made more than $250,000.
Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show and Sale cleared $562,370. 179 of the 330 pieces sold.
Buff Bill Art Show and Sale totalled $905,920.
Interesting:
Roy Andersen, one of the CAA artists who withdrew, has a triptych featured on p. 84. 52” tall and a total of 152” wide, in three pieces, narrating an invented Crow story against a lurid red sky. I’ll pass. (In generaI I find most paintings of Indians pretty bogus or amateur.)
I liked the Peter Brooke bronze portrait of “Michael, Standing” on p. 85. Another I liked was on page 87: Krystii Melaine’s “After Rain,” a man leading a dapple-gray team across the flooded creek. Very simple and real. On p. 93 is a strong bronze bust of a Huron with the patina very well handled. It’s by Barbara Kiwak.
But the real reason for some to buy and hoard this issue is the well-illustrated story of John Clymer’s Lewis & Clark series. (A dozen paintings.) John was another professional illustrator, well-known for his Sat. Eve. Post covers and for reconstructions of other times and places for National Geographic. He was a narrative artist who was careful to do research with the help of Doris, his wife. They often stopped to visit Bob Scriver in Browning, swapping art lessons for anatomy lessons, and even gave us a wedding gift, a very large illustration of a James Willard Schultz story about bison running through camp, tearing up and knocking down everything. (Later I used to claim it was an illustration of our own marriage.)
Clymer’s colors tended towards the pastel, almost a watercolor palette, which is appropriate for the open prairie and seaside vignettes. They are carefully composed, usually along diagonals and curves that guide the eye to the people, which have a similar “Clymer” look though they are costumed authentically and have distinguishable faces, at least in the case of those who left portraits or -- like York -- suggest something specific. It is the people that count, though the scenery is beautiful, and it would be interesting to compare painting-by-painting with Charles Fritz’ series. I don’t have a copy of Fritz’ book, but my memory is that he is following geography more than anecdote.
John was one of the CAA members who didn’t go on horseback but he was a Westerner -- just not from the prairie. He was also well-connected and respected around Connecticut and one of the early members of the Society of Animal Artists and other professional groups. He was a mild and honorable man who never did harm, held a grudge, or worked an angle as nearly as I could tell. If he had, I think Doris would have straightened him out.
When I was a little child, I tore Clymer’s painting of stampeding horses out of a magazine. It was a double-page ad for a gasoline company, as I recall, and I had no idea who John was at that time. Bob said he took a terrible ribbing about the picture because there was absolutely no dust raised by those trampling hooves! I didn’t care about realism. To me they were like Varga girls, beautiful pastel living flesh.
Eating places: Couldn’t see any. Maybe you can.
Doorways: p. 40 Schmid’s “Red Door II,” only 8”x7” but quite sophisticated composition of a European stone building with a fellow in a beret standiing outside reading the newspaper.
p. 58: Front door of the San Jose Church by Walt Gonske. Strong simple adobe lines against a dark blue sky.
Pino ad on page 19. I don’t know how to “do” links, but if you go to this URL: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/002311.html There’s an interesting discussion about Pino. He’s another of the paperback cover artists and illustrators (like Terpning and many others) who has moved over to easel painting.
Money reports:
Maynard Dixon Country 2005 gala made more than $250,000.
Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show and Sale cleared $562,370. 179 of the 330 pieces sold.
Buff Bill Art Show and Sale totalled $905,920.
Interesting:
Roy Andersen, one of the CAA artists who withdrew, has a triptych featured on p. 84. 52” tall and a total of 152” wide, in three pieces, narrating an invented Crow story against a lurid red sky. I’ll pass. (In generaI I find most paintings of Indians pretty bogus or amateur.)
I liked the Peter Brooke bronze portrait of “Michael, Standing” on p. 85. Another I liked was on page 87: Krystii Melaine’s “After Rain,” a man leading a dapple-gray team across the flooded creek. Very simple and real. On p. 93 is a strong bronze bust of a Huron with the patina very well handled. It’s by Barbara Kiwak.
But the real reason for some to buy and hoard this issue is the well-illustrated story of John Clymer’s Lewis & Clark series. (A dozen paintings.) John was another professional illustrator, well-known for his Sat. Eve. Post covers and for reconstructions of other times and places for National Geographic. He was a narrative artist who was careful to do research with the help of Doris, his wife. They often stopped to visit Bob Scriver in Browning, swapping art lessons for anatomy lessons, and even gave us a wedding gift, a very large illustration of a James Willard Schultz story about bison running through camp, tearing up and knocking down everything. (Later I used to claim it was an illustration of our own marriage.)
Clymer’s colors tended towards the pastel, almost a watercolor palette, which is appropriate for the open prairie and seaside vignettes. They are carefully composed, usually along diagonals and curves that guide the eye to the people, which have a similar “Clymer” look though they are costumed authentically and have distinguishable faces, at least in the case of those who left portraits or -- like York -- suggest something specific. It is the people that count, though the scenery is beautiful, and it would be interesting to compare painting-by-painting with Charles Fritz’ series. I don’t have a copy of Fritz’ book, but my memory is that he is following geography more than anecdote.
John was one of the CAA members who didn’t go on horseback but he was a Westerner -- just not from the prairie. He was also well-connected and respected around Connecticut and one of the early members of the Society of Animal Artists and other professional groups. He was a mild and honorable man who never did harm, held a grudge, or worked an angle as nearly as I could tell. If he had, I think Doris would have straightened him out.
When I was a little child, I tore Clymer’s painting of stampeding horses out of a magazine. It was a double-page ad for a gasoline company, as I recall, and I had no idea who John was at that time. Bob said he took a terrible ribbing about the picture because there was absolutely no dust raised by those trampling hooves! I didn’t care about realism. To me they were like Varga girls, beautiful pastel living flesh.
The Eiteljorg Ad in SouthWest Art
In my review of the Southwest Art magazine for December, 2005, I neglected to mention that there is a "grid" painting on page 121. The subject is ochre and sienna plus darker colors (black and white in the center rectangle) and appears to be architectural in subject matter: in fact, a bridge.
The painting is by James Lavendour, a Walla Walla tribal member. It is featured in an ad by "the new" Eiteljorg Museum with the motto "Into the Fray." It announces the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art 2005. I take this to mean attention to creation rather than focus on conservation of artifacts.
Raymon Gonyea, who is the curator of Indian arts at the Eiteljorg, was in Browning at the Museum of the Plains Indian in the Sixties. He was standing on sinking sands then, but he was a good friend and we learned from him.
I'll try to write more about the Eiteljorg later, though I've never been there. It's one of the newer museums of its kind.
The painting is by James Lavendour, a Walla Walla tribal member. It is featured in an ad by "the new" Eiteljorg Museum with the motto "Into the Fray." It announces the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art 2005. I take this to mean attention to creation rather than focus on conservation of artifacts.
Raymon Gonyea, who is the curator of Indian arts at the Eiteljorg, was in Browning at the Museum of the Plains Indian in the Sixties. He was standing on sinking sands then, but he was a good friend and we learned from him.
I'll try to write more about the Eiteljorg later, though I've never been there. It's one of the newer museums of its kind.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Cowboy Artists of America in December, 2005
Kristin Bucher, editor of “Southwest Art,” in her editorial for December, 2005, did a nice balancing act when talking about the most recent changes in CAA. Briefly, she told us that some important members have been lost: Ray Swanson (deceased young), Roy Anderson, Robert Pummill and Jim Reynolds (the original “yellow slicker” artist -- his are often wet with rain).
On the other hand, the group -- which no one on the outside expected to persist, since keeping “cowboy artists” within a boundary is roughly like herding cats -- has met its fortieth anniversary. They did a smart thing: returned to the former Oak Creek Tavern in Sedona, AZ, where the organization originated in the high spirits resulting from participating in a trail drive. I wonder who actually attended.
Kristin notes that the group includes a couple of dozen members, but I think the original membership was quite a bit smaller and the number of members who have traveled through is MUCH larger. For a while there were female members. For a while there were “associates,” sort of aspiring CAA members. I’d like to see a list of ALL the members of every sort. The four who left this time had been long-time members.
An organization cannot last forty years without changing with the times, but CAA leapt from a scene where “cowboy artists” were just a kind of folk phenomenon, to a market today that approaches a million dollars per painting. (For some reason, though sculpture is more expensive to produce, it’s the paintings that get the high prices.) The original premise of CAA was that all the artists were especially good because they were actual practicing cowboys who could at least ride and were REQUIRED to show up once in a while to ride and re-”bond” with the other members. In those days, it was assumed that authenticity was one of the major dimensions of good cowboy art. One of the continuing tensions in the group was that some were better at drawing or whatever than others were, but they were good buddies, had been there at the beginning, and WERE cowboys.
Now people want to join because the quality of the art as art is high so that art buyers who can’t really tell what’s good will have some assurance. The reason the art has become so good is because of the migration of trained illustrators out of the NE into SW studios. Today’s CAA members might or might not have a little cowboy in their background. (Of course, that migration happened a few decades ago and many of those folks have aged and gone on ahead.) What’s more painful is that the camaraderie -- one for all and all for one -- seems to be breaking down as skill and high sale prices become the more important criteria. The gentlemen’s code of the NE artists has also been left behind.
The departure of the noted artists is probably not as serious as the hardening of attitudes and business practices (which have always been contentious) brought on by association with the print industry. The people who put out prints are frankly corporate and their lawyers are steely. Artists who are bound to them by contracts and big incomes soon realize they are captives.
This has lead to a souring of relationships with secondary businesses like index websites, for instance, “AskArt.com” which also had a major gunslinger-type shootout last summer with CAA. I have no idea whether this is related to the leaving of the four artists. AskArt deleted all CAA members in the aftermath of CAA lawyers’ accusations over photos of the art, which seemed to be only the mask for the real issue: AskArt publishes auction results and some artists were not doing well at auction. (At least one artist who stepped out of CAA is now posted on AskArt again. The website is a major source of information for curators, buyers, writers, and so on.)
So Western art auctions, which have contributed to the major jumps in price, have also made some artists vulnerable. There are a lot of them, the prices are taken as indicators of quality whether or not they actually are, and the artists cannot control them. They tell me that when Bob Scriver’s bronzes didn’t sell well at auction, his fourth wife actually wept. (Of course, she drank and that makes people sentimental.)
Cowboy Artists of America are used to being admired. Those who weren’t, quietly stepped out. And one of the by-products of this admiration is that people collect artists as much as their art. So buyers expect to be guests in the artist’s home, expect “their” artists to attend their social events, and so on. This is a corporate model, maybe, except no golf. But it is very high pressure, esp. for people who are naturally more attuned to long days at the easel in their studio. There is often great emphasis on how congenial a particular artist might be. In my experience, these individuals are likely to be people who praise your spouse on top of the table and kick your dog under the table.
One of these people swept in here to the Blackfeet reservation a few years ago with a lot of giclee prints under his arm (instead of beads and silk ribbons), demanded a lot of accommodation in terms of rounding up scenes and models he could photograph, and left at the end of a week or so. He and his print company has made millions, the local people have giclee prints on their walls without really knowing what they are, and this artist has moved on to the next reservation -- all while claiming enormous rapport and sympathy with Blackfeet, about which he knows little or nothing. This observer was not impressed.
I wonder whether CAA could persist if Joe Beeler, one of the founders, were to be lost from the group. His personality seems to exceed all the others even as he tries to be inclusive. He is a carrier of the original CAA vision and often a diplomat in their midst.
On the other hand, the group -- which no one on the outside expected to persist, since keeping “cowboy artists” within a boundary is roughly like herding cats -- has met its fortieth anniversary. They did a smart thing: returned to the former Oak Creek Tavern in Sedona, AZ, where the organization originated in the high spirits resulting from participating in a trail drive. I wonder who actually attended.
Kristin notes that the group includes a couple of dozen members, but I think the original membership was quite a bit smaller and the number of members who have traveled through is MUCH larger. For a while there were female members. For a while there were “associates,” sort of aspiring CAA members. I’d like to see a list of ALL the members of every sort. The four who left this time had been long-time members.
An organization cannot last forty years without changing with the times, but CAA leapt from a scene where “cowboy artists” were just a kind of folk phenomenon, to a market today that approaches a million dollars per painting. (For some reason, though sculpture is more expensive to produce, it’s the paintings that get the high prices.) The original premise of CAA was that all the artists were especially good because they were actual practicing cowboys who could at least ride and were REQUIRED to show up once in a while to ride and re-”bond” with the other members. In those days, it was assumed that authenticity was one of the major dimensions of good cowboy art. One of the continuing tensions in the group was that some were better at drawing or whatever than others were, but they were good buddies, had been there at the beginning, and WERE cowboys.
Now people want to join because the quality of the art as art is high so that art buyers who can’t really tell what’s good will have some assurance. The reason the art has become so good is because of the migration of trained illustrators out of the NE into SW studios. Today’s CAA members might or might not have a little cowboy in their background. (Of course, that migration happened a few decades ago and many of those folks have aged and gone on ahead.) What’s more painful is that the camaraderie -- one for all and all for one -- seems to be breaking down as skill and high sale prices become the more important criteria. The gentlemen’s code of the NE artists has also been left behind.
The departure of the noted artists is probably not as serious as the hardening of attitudes and business practices (which have always been contentious) brought on by association with the print industry. The people who put out prints are frankly corporate and their lawyers are steely. Artists who are bound to them by contracts and big incomes soon realize they are captives.
This has lead to a souring of relationships with secondary businesses like index websites, for instance, “AskArt.com” which also had a major gunslinger-type shootout last summer with CAA. I have no idea whether this is related to the leaving of the four artists. AskArt deleted all CAA members in the aftermath of CAA lawyers’ accusations over photos of the art, which seemed to be only the mask for the real issue: AskArt publishes auction results and some artists were not doing well at auction. (At least one artist who stepped out of CAA is now posted on AskArt again. The website is a major source of information for curators, buyers, writers, and so on.)
So Western art auctions, which have contributed to the major jumps in price, have also made some artists vulnerable. There are a lot of them, the prices are taken as indicators of quality whether or not they actually are, and the artists cannot control them. They tell me that when Bob Scriver’s bronzes didn’t sell well at auction, his fourth wife actually wept. (Of course, she drank and that makes people sentimental.)
Cowboy Artists of America are used to being admired. Those who weren’t, quietly stepped out. And one of the by-products of this admiration is that people collect artists as much as their art. So buyers expect to be guests in the artist’s home, expect “their” artists to attend their social events, and so on. This is a corporate model, maybe, except no golf. But it is very high pressure, esp. for people who are naturally more attuned to long days at the easel in their studio. There is often great emphasis on how congenial a particular artist might be. In my experience, these individuals are likely to be people who praise your spouse on top of the table and kick your dog under the table.
One of these people swept in here to the Blackfeet reservation a few years ago with a lot of giclee prints under his arm (instead of beads and silk ribbons), demanded a lot of accommodation in terms of rounding up scenes and models he could photograph, and left at the end of a week or so. He and his print company has made millions, the local people have giclee prints on their walls without really knowing what they are, and this artist has moved on to the next reservation -- all while claiming enormous rapport and sympathy with Blackfeet, about which he knows little or nothing. This observer was not impressed.
I wonder whether CAA could persist if Joe Beeler, one of the founders, were to be lost from the group. His personality seems to exceed all the others even as he tries to be inclusive. He is a carrier of the original CAA vision and often a diplomat in their midst.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Southwest Art, December, 2005
“Special still-life issue”
Checklist:
Yellow slickers: p. 65. Not exactly, but a couple of James Bama guys in waxed canvas dusters.
Eating places: P. 74: Hilarie Lambert’s Parisian and tres elegante dining room. P. 78: Lindsay Goodwin’s equally elegant celebration of light, paneling and wine glasses.
Depicting writing: On pg. 58 there’s a purple rabbit typing and a lady in a patio chair with a notebook.
Doorways: p. 42 The front of a ‘dobe strung with Christmas lights. p. 67 a very fantastic and un-Western door to a house with Gothic windows and fairy in a tree out front. p. 119 Actual doors to order! Works of art, though.
Simplest: p. 107: One of the top best toys this year is a plain cardboard box. This is a painting of four plain boxes, mostly toward the top of the painting, all boxes open, welcoming.
Most complex:
Most haunting: p. 73. Oreland Joe steps away from his usual classic and restrained stone carvings to both paint and cast the same strange shape of a face topped with frondy feathers and looped with turquoise beads.
Money marks:
ARTS FOR THE PARKS, Jackson, WY:
$25,000 & gold medal to Morten Solberg for “Morning Flight,
Olympic National Park." Painting is shown on p. 128. A heron flying over a
tide.
WESTERN VISIONS MINIATURES AND MORE, also Jackson, WY:
$1,055,000 total sales.
BUFFALO BILL ART SHOW & SALE, Cody, WY:
More than $900,000 total sales. Highest yet for them.
Krystii Melaine’s “Moving Cattle” and James Bama’s “Black Elk’s
Great-Great-Grandson” each sold for $30,000.
SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA, PLEIN AIR PAINTING FESTIVAL
$111,000 total sales.
MOST OUTRAGEOUS -- even CRIMINAL:
The classified ads feature two (relatively) big color ads with the identical photo of a Remington bronze. THESE COMPANIES ARE BOGUS!! They are selling illegal replicas and castings, some of them bearing very little resemblance to the originals and some of them evidently close copies done from photos or maybe molds pulled from legitimate castings. We’ve been hearing about these bronzes, cast in SE Asia like those cheap clothes you love. They claim to be “wholesale to the public.” Believe me, there is no such thing as really fine art bronzes that are “wholesale to the public.”
Aside from their dubious source, these castings are ruining the market for authentic American Western castings because only highly experienced people can tell the knock-offs from the real thing. Some worried people simply make a rule: never buy bronzes. Amateurs are likely to end up with something that has no provenance, which is the real key to art value. (Provenance is being able to document the source of the art and the various owners until the present.) People with no real eye for art are liable to buy stuff that doesn’t even resemble what it purports to actually be. (Take a look at what is supposed to be Rodin’s “Thinker.”)
Southwest Art magazine should be embarrassed for allowing such people to run ads. It is simply false-advertising and piracy. Probably the person who runs the ad section has little contact with the editors, who presumably know better, but this is pretty serious and whoever has the authority ought to draw a line.
Checklist:
Yellow slickers: p. 65. Not exactly, but a couple of James Bama guys in waxed canvas dusters.
Eating places: P. 74: Hilarie Lambert’s Parisian and tres elegante dining room. P. 78: Lindsay Goodwin’s equally elegant celebration of light, paneling and wine glasses.
Depicting writing: On pg. 58 there’s a purple rabbit typing and a lady in a patio chair with a notebook.
Doorways: p. 42 The front of a ‘dobe strung with Christmas lights. p. 67 a very fantastic and un-Western door to a house with Gothic windows and fairy in a tree out front. p. 119 Actual doors to order! Works of art, though.
Simplest: p. 107: One of the top best toys this year is a plain cardboard box. This is a painting of four plain boxes, mostly toward the top of the painting, all boxes open, welcoming.
Most complex:
Most haunting: p. 73. Oreland Joe steps away from his usual classic and restrained stone carvings to both paint and cast the same strange shape of a face topped with frondy feathers and looped with turquoise beads.
Money marks:
ARTS FOR THE PARKS, Jackson, WY:
$25,000 & gold medal to Morten Solberg for “Morning Flight,
Olympic National Park." Painting is shown on p. 128. A heron flying over a
tide.
WESTERN VISIONS MINIATURES AND MORE, also Jackson, WY:
$1,055,000 total sales.
BUFFALO BILL ART SHOW & SALE, Cody, WY:
More than $900,000 total sales. Highest yet for them.
Krystii Melaine’s “Moving Cattle” and James Bama’s “Black Elk’s
Great-Great-Grandson” each sold for $30,000.
SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA, PLEIN AIR PAINTING FESTIVAL
$111,000 total sales.
MOST OUTRAGEOUS -- even CRIMINAL:
The classified ads feature two (relatively) big color ads with the identical photo of a Remington bronze. THESE COMPANIES ARE BOGUS!! They are selling illegal replicas and castings, some of them bearing very little resemblance to the originals and some of them evidently close copies done from photos or maybe molds pulled from legitimate castings. We’ve been hearing about these bronzes, cast in SE Asia like those cheap clothes you love. They claim to be “wholesale to the public.” Believe me, there is no such thing as really fine art bronzes that are “wholesale to the public.”
Aside from their dubious source, these castings are ruining the market for authentic American Western castings because only highly experienced people can tell the knock-offs from the real thing. Some worried people simply make a rule: never buy bronzes. Amateurs are likely to end up with something that has no provenance, which is the real key to art value. (Provenance is being able to document the source of the art and the various owners until the present.) People with no real eye for art are liable to buy stuff that doesn’t even resemble what it purports to actually be. (Take a look at what is supposed to be Rodin’s “Thinker.”)
Southwest Art magazine should be embarrassed for allowing such people to run ads. It is simply false-advertising and piracy. Probably the person who runs the ad section has little contact with the editors, who presumably know better, but this is pretty serious and whoever has the authority ought to draw a line.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Rex & Iola Breneman Bequest
Rex and Iola Breneman were customers of Bob Scriver for many years, building up a repertoire of bronzes, large and small, including some modeled specifically for them and sold with the copyright, and castings of the spectacular rodeo bronzes done at the end of the Sixties. Recently the Brenemans donated one hundred Scriver br0nzes, worth more than $350,000, to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame Center of Western Heritage and Cultures: Native Americans, Ranching and Rodeo. (The website is www.northdakotacowboy.com where you will see Teddy Roosevelt looking “bully” in hair chaps.)
Located in Medora, near Roosevelt’s ranch, the North Dakota Hall of Fame is sort of a northern counterpoint to the Oklahoma Version where another set of Scriver rodeo bronzes is located, specifically the heroic-sized portrait of Bill Linderman that got him started on rodeo subjects in the first place. The bronzes are now displayed in the traveling exhibit gallery. Dickinson State University, which Scriver attended, cooperated by storing and displaying pieces. They will circulate through the schools in the winter when the museum is closed.
Rex, a WWII and Korean War Air Corps bombardier, was a little guy -- like a cowboy -- and ran a service station in Coram on the West side of the Rockies. His wife, Iola, sometimes helped Bob corral some of his ever-expanding lists of accomplishments and new creations. Like many customers of Western artists, the Brenemans felt they were part of Bob’s family.
Iola’s nephew, Jacob Bell, also has a website featuring the collections of the Breneman’s, principally works by Scriver and his lifelong friend, Ace Powell. (http://www.bobscriver.com/) There are photos of some of the Scriver bronzes on that website as well as family snapshots and lists of sculptures with their sizes and other data. It’s unclear whether more Breneman castings of Scriver bronzes will be available in the future.
Rex himself has had a series of strokes which have narrowed his life considerably. Luckily, Iola is still her usual competent self and is coping pretty well.
Medora, North Dakota, has a wildly romantic history that is well worth researching (Medora was a real woman, the wife of a Marquis, and her elegant home remains) though it isn’t appropriate to discuss on this blog.
Located in Medora, near Roosevelt’s ranch, the North Dakota Hall of Fame is sort of a northern counterpoint to the Oklahoma Version where another set of Scriver rodeo bronzes is located, specifically the heroic-sized portrait of Bill Linderman that got him started on rodeo subjects in the first place. The bronzes are now displayed in the traveling exhibit gallery. Dickinson State University, which Scriver attended, cooperated by storing and displaying pieces. They will circulate through the schools in the winter when the museum is closed.
Rex, a WWII and Korean War Air Corps bombardier, was a little guy -- like a cowboy -- and ran a service station in Coram on the West side of the Rockies. His wife, Iola, sometimes helped Bob corral some of his ever-expanding lists of accomplishments and new creations. Like many customers of Western artists, the Brenemans felt they were part of Bob’s family.
Iola’s nephew, Jacob Bell, also has a website featuring the collections of the Breneman’s, principally works by Scriver and his lifelong friend, Ace Powell. (http://www.bobscriver.com/) There are photos of some of the Scriver bronzes on that website as well as family snapshots and lists of sculptures with their sizes and other data. It’s unclear whether more Breneman castings of Scriver bronzes will be available in the future.
Rex himself has had a series of strokes which have narrowed his life considerably. Luckily, Iola is still her usual competent self and is coping pretty well.
Medora, North Dakota, has a wildly romantic history that is well worth researching (Medora was a real woman, the wife of a Marquis, and her elegant home remains) though it isn’t appropriate to discuss on this blog.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Arnie Olsen resigns from Montana Historical Society
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/11/03/montana/a01110305_03.txt
Historical Society director resigns
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON - IR State Bureau - 11/03/05
HELENA — Arnold Olsen resigned Wednesday as director of the Montana Historical Society, a job he had held since July 1999.
Olsen, 55, said he is resigning to pursue other interests related to his doctorate in wildlife biology. He said he will leave the director’s job, which pays about $97,000 a year, in a week or so.
The society’s board of trustees said it will begin an immediate search for his successor.
He previously worked for 17 to 18 years for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks where he served as administrator of the Wildlife and Parks divisions.
Olsen resigned during the closed portion of a teleconference “special meeting” of the Historical Society’s board of trustees in the Capitol earlier in the day.
The board’s agenda announced in advance that a portion of the meeting was to be closed because “personal privacy outweighs public’s right to know,” a determination later made at the meeting. Although the agenda was posted on the Historical Society’s Web site, it was not sent to at least some news organizations prior to the meeting.
Like most society directors, Olsen had his supporters and his detractors on the board and among the agency’s various constituencies. The board oversees operations of Historical Society, which runs the state historical museum, the state archives, a history magazine, the state historical preservation office and oversees certain historical buildings.
In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Olsen said his resignation was voluntary. He said he never intended to stay as director as long as he did. Olsen said he has never remained in any one job longer than eight years.
“I have a lot of diverse interests,” Olsen said. He said he wants to remain in Helena and would like to return to the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the rest of his career before retiring in four or five years.
Asked if he received a financial settlement from the board to resign, Olsen said, “All of that is private.”
The press release announcing his resignation told how Olsen spearheaded efforts for the society before the 2005 Legislature’s to secure $7.5 million in state bonding for seed money for a new Montana History Center.
The society is considering the purchase of the land and buildings where the Capital Hill Mall is now located in Helena, a few blocks north of the Capitol and converting it to a new museum and headquarters, a project estimated to cost $40 million. The society is now completing architectural and engineering studies to determine if the mall is suitable for a history center.
Olsen said the timing of his retirement was in the best interest of the completion of the project.
“Looking at the timing of my retirement, I would not be able to see this important construction project through to completion and would not want to leave at a critical juncture,” he said in the press release.
He said he got the project to the point where it needed to be with the seed money from the Legislature and the support from Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
A number of private donors are stepping up now that they’ve seen the state’s commitment to the project, Olsen said.
“The future of the society is bright, and I feel good about the contributions I have been able to make toward its success,” Olsen said. “I wish the society and the board of trustees well as they move forward with their important work.”
Among his notable other accomplishments was the acquisition of the Robert M. Scriver collection to keep it in the state of Montana, the press release said.
Olsen was the ninth professional director to head the Historical Society since 1951, when historian K. Ross Toole headed the society for seven years. Before then, the society didn’t have professional administrators. The average tenure of its professional directors has been about five years.
The Montana Historical Society was created in 1865, a year after Montana became a territory, and became a state agency in 1891.
Historical Society director resigns
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON - IR State Bureau - 11/03/05
HELENA — Arnold Olsen resigned Wednesday as director of the Montana Historical Society, a job he had held since July 1999.
Olsen, 55, said he is resigning to pursue other interests related to his doctorate in wildlife biology. He said he will leave the director’s job, which pays about $97,000 a year, in a week or so.
The society’s board of trustees said it will begin an immediate search for his successor.
He previously worked for 17 to 18 years for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks where he served as administrator of the Wildlife and Parks divisions.
Olsen resigned during the closed portion of a teleconference “special meeting” of the Historical Society’s board of trustees in the Capitol earlier in the day.
The board’s agenda announced in advance that a portion of the meeting was to be closed because “personal privacy outweighs public’s right to know,” a determination later made at the meeting. Although the agenda was posted on the Historical Society’s Web site, it was not sent to at least some news organizations prior to the meeting.
Like most society directors, Olsen had his supporters and his detractors on the board and among the agency’s various constituencies. The board oversees operations of Historical Society, which runs the state historical museum, the state archives, a history magazine, the state historical preservation office and oversees certain historical buildings.
In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Olsen said his resignation was voluntary. He said he never intended to stay as director as long as he did. Olsen said he has never remained in any one job longer than eight years.
“I have a lot of diverse interests,” Olsen said. He said he wants to remain in Helena and would like to return to the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the rest of his career before retiring in four or five years.
Asked if he received a financial settlement from the board to resign, Olsen said, “All of that is private.”
The press release announcing his resignation told how Olsen spearheaded efforts for the society before the 2005 Legislature’s to secure $7.5 million in state bonding for seed money for a new Montana History Center.
The society is considering the purchase of the land and buildings where the Capital Hill Mall is now located in Helena, a few blocks north of the Capitol and converting it to a new museum and headquarters, a project estimated to cost $40 million. The society is now completing architectural and engineering studies to determine if the mall is suitable for a history center.
Olsen said the timing of his retirement was in the best interest of the completion of the project.
“Looking at the timing of my retirement, I would not be able to see this important construction project through to completion and would not want to leave at a critical juncture,” he said in the press release.
He said he got the project to the point where it needed to be with the seed money from the Legislature and the support from Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
A number of private donors are stepping up now that they’ve seen the state’s commitment to the project, Olsen said.
“The future of the society is bright, and I feel good about the contributions I have been able to make toward its success,” Olsen said. “I wish the society and the board of trustees well as they move forward with their important work.”
Among his notable other accomplishments was the acquisition of the Robert M. Scriver collection to keep it in the state of Montana, the press release said.
Olsen was the ninth professional director to head the Historical Society since 1951, when historian K. Ross Toole headed the society for seven years. Before then, the society didn’t have professional administrators. The average tenure of its professional directors has been about five years.
The Montana Historical Society was created in 1865, a year after Montana became a territory, and became a state agency in 1891.
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