During the past decade, R. Tom Gilleon’s career has skyrocketed, earning him tremendous recognition and rewards. But now, at age 79, he’s most excited about projects that are taking him in a new direction—what he calls his “2020 Vision”—and that might well be the most daunting challenge he’s ever undertaken. It’s a new phase of his artistic life from which paintings that he describes as “MMXX Masterworks” are emerging.

Gilleon is best known for his iconic paintings of tipis and Native American images. His background in illustration, his sensitivity to nature, and his respect for the Old West unite in bold colors, sparse and direct composition, luminosity, and evocative lands and skies.

Read the full article in the March/April 2021 issue.

Slow Bull’s Eye

Oil
50” by 40”

“Slow Bull had a unique design for his face paint. It was to help him observe how all things in life have beginnings and endings but do not begin or end. His wife was rather frightening in appearance and might have inspired the Bull’s Eye.”

Bad Moon On The Rise

Oil
24” by 30”

“The last warmth of a weak winter sun passes over a lone tipi in the shadows. The lodge’s design suggests the nature of the starving time: long, cold nights and little food, skeletal bison, and a ‘bad moon’ on the rise.”