Archives for Figurative

‘I’m Living the Life I Paint’

‘I’m Living the Life I Paint’

November 15, 2018 | by

Tim Cox has gone fishing twice already this year. That might not seem like much to most avid fishermen, but Cox isn’t complaining. It’s more fishing that he’s done for the better part of a decade. In 2010, Cox became the vice president of the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA). The next year, when he was president, the organization officially moved from its long-time headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. That transition consumed most of Cox’s time for much of his two-year term as president. “I think I averaged about four hours of sleep a day for those
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The Studio of Paul Moore

The Studio of Paul Moore

September 15, 2018 | by

Oklahoma-based sculptor Paul Moore describes his working studio as a rather unassuming building situated in an older section of his hometown of Norman. Despite being a bit run down when he purchased it nearly two decades ago, he knew it was perfect in size and location. “It is actually two, side-by-side segments of 2,000 square feet each, with another 1,000 square-foot extension at the rear of the right section,” he says. “When we started renovating the building, we kept the beautiful tin ceilings over what became the front room gallery, but otherwise we gutted the entire remaining sections.” Eschewing the
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Reaching New Heights

Reaching New Heights

September 15, 2018 | by

Martin Grelle was a very nervous young man when, in 1974, just a year after he graduated from high school, he had his first art show at a gallery and frame shop in Clifton, Texas. “I had no idea what to expect,” he says. “It’s hard to remember, but I probably had, at most, eight or 10 pieces for the show, and we sold almost all of them the first evening. I had a combination of oils, charcoals, and pastels in the show, and the largest piece was probably an oil painting about 24” by 36”. It probably sold for
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Three-Dimensional Delights

Three-Dimensional Delights

July 15, 2018 | by

I made my first—and, as I recall, my last—attempts at sculpting when I was in elementary school. Those “works of art” consisted of an ashtray—why, I don’t know; neither of my parents smoked—and an elephant with several holes on its back, strategically placed to hold pencils. I quickly learned that art was not my calling and turned to other endeavors. Fortunately for us, the five artists we feature here did not give up so easily. Of course, they had the talent—and the fortitude—to pursue their dreams of becoming artists and, in the process, have brought immeasurable joy to countless art
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Realism with a Painterly Slant

Realism with a Painterly Slant

July 15, 2018 | by

Shawn Cameron can’t remember when she first began drawing horses. “I never decided I would be a Western artist,” she says. “It was just a natural outcome of my life. I painted or drew horses from—I can’t remember when I started! But from my earliest memory, I drew what I saw, and what I saw was horses and cattle.” A fourth-generation cattle rancher, Cameron grew up among horses, cattle, and working cowboys. She also grew up immersed in the arts. “My mother encouraged it, always,” she says. “She studied art and music herself, and my brother and I had professional
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A Lifelong Journey

A Lifelong Journey

May 15, 2018 | by

The first sculpture Bill Nebeker cast was of two mountain men. He had been crafting small clay pieces at his kitchen table in the evenings, after working all day with other artists at George Phippen’s Bear Paw Bronze Foundry in Skull Valley, near Nebeker’s home in Prescott, Arizona. “It was pretty crude,” Nebeker admits. But it sold. So did the others he made after it. It wasn’t long before he was making more selling sculptures than he was at the foundry, so he gave up his job and starting sculpting full time: cowboys, mostly, but also Native Americans and wildlife.
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In Praise of the Cowboy

In Praise of the Cowboy

May 15, 2018 | by

Bill Anton traces his fascination with the West back to a trip he took, when he was just 7, with his family to Glacier National Park and the West Coast. “The mountains, the air, the weather were profoundly different from anything I’d known,” says the artist, who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. “I’d never seen anything that was like the American West, and the impression it made on my mind and heart was unmistakable. I’d find a way to be back to stay the minute I was old enough—and I did.” Now living in Prescott, Arizona, Anton has been sharing
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‘I Love What I Am Doing’

‘I Love What I Am Doing’

January 15, 2018 | by

Although Tom Dorr ranks among the nation’s most prolific painters of Western art, the Phoenix-based artist, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, and spent his early years in Kansas City, Kansas, had little affinity for subjects west of the Mississippi. That changed, when his father’s employer, AT&T, transferred the family to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the early 1950s. “I was about 12, when we arrived in Colorado, and by then I had already discovered my love for painting and drawing,” Dorr says. “At that time, there were still a lot of old farms and ranches in the area, so I
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‘The Sagebrush Rembrandt’

‘The Sagebrush Rembrandt’

November 18, 2017 | by

He hailed from West Virginia, received most of his training in Europe, and lived most of his life in New York City. But William R. Leigh is best known for his portrayals of the West – a region he didn’t explore until he was about 40 years old. Eventually, however, his became so connected with the West that he was dubbed the “Sagebrush Rembrandt.” Leigh was born September 23, 1866, to a family whose once-valuable estate had just been destroyed by Civil War-related carnage and looting. He claimed to have descended from both Sir Walter Raleigh and Pocahontas. Though those
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Western Art: An Evolving Story

Western Art: An Evolving Story

November 18, 2017 | by

In the late 19th century, Western artists were, in essence, historians of the American West. James Catlin, Hudson River School artists Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran and others created realistic paintings that told the story of Indians, white pioneers, and unspoiled landscape. Other well-known artists, such as Frederic Remington and Charlie Russell, expanded the genre into action scenes depicting the disappearing Wild West. In more recent history, illustrators such as Howard Terpning, Frank McCarthy, Bob Kuhn, and Howard Rogers, continued to document the Western story, but from a more contemporary standpoint. Does that mean there is a Western art revolution,
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