For nearly 20 years, Utah artist Nicholas Coleman has created realistic paintings, with impressionistic overtones, as he preserves the history of the American West. His Western history and art education began at his father’s side.

“[My dad] was always buying me sketchbooks, or we’d go to the art store and get colored pencils or clay,” Coleman says. His father also bought him history books and told stories of cowboys, Native Americans, and mountain men to expand his son’s knowledge of the country’s heritage.

As early as age 3, Coleman worked alongside his father, renowned artist Michael Coleman. The younger Coleman recalls that he was allowed to paint on darker sections of his father’s canvasses—and, like father, like son, he does the same for his two children: Henkrik, 11, and Maja, 8. “My dad did a good job with me, but I want to do an even better job than my dad did,” he says.

Coleman loved to accompany his dad in the studio, watching the posing and dressing of models.

Nicholas Coleman

Heading West
Oil
24″x46″

“I’ve read all kinds of different accounts of early settlers and pioneers, who were headed West. I’ve tried to honor their journeys and sacrifices the best way I know how: in paint.”

Nicholas Coleman

Color of Night
Oil
30″x40″

“Drawing upon the past, I love Frank Tenney Johnson’s nocturnes. If there was one artist who did it right, it was him. Not to copy, but my enthusiasm and love of the American West compels me to paint. On hunting trips, you’d be surprised by the amount of light there really is, when you are out in the middle of nowhere. To bring my memories and sketches back into the studio to get going on paintings truly brings me joy.”