Desert Caballeros Western Museum | December 19, 2020-February 28, 2021 | Wickenburg, AZ

Passionate Characters

The Desert Caballeros Western Museum honors Bill Anton with a lifetime achievement award.

Each December, the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona, honors important artists from the Grand Canyon State with a lifetime achievement award. The 2020 recipient is Bill Anton, the Prescott painter who has devoted his career to capturing working cowboys in the West. Road Hazard, oil, 36 x 30”. Private collection.

Anton will not only receive the prestigious award—he joins past recipients Ed Mell, John Coleman and other prominent artists—but he will also be honored with a retrospective exhibition, Bill Anton Paints the West, which opens December 19 and continues through February 28, 2021. The lifetime achievement award will be presented to him at the ticketed event heART of the West Gala, set for January 16, 2021. Morning Glory, oil, 32 x 48”. Private collection.

For the retrospective, Anton helped organize the loans for the museum, a process that he enjoyed. “First thing I noticed was how much work I’ve done. Sometimes you lose track of how many you’ve done, but then when you stand back and start looking at all of them you see the progression,” he says. “I’m cherry picking the best ones, and it’s fun to come across one from earlier in my career and see that it may have been 15 or so years ahead of where I was at the time—a real turn-the-corner painting. Maybe it had different light or more complex lighting. Those are fun to come across when you’re looking at your own work.”Canyon Rescue, oil, 48 x 36”. Private collection.

Anton adds that about two-thirds of the show is cowboy subject matter, as well as a number of plein air pieces. Noteworthy works include many of his nocturne pieces, for which he is well known. “I’ve been doing nocturnes for 30 years. First one I did was in the neighborhood of 1989. They sure are fun to paint and full of mood,” he says. “There’s also a delicate balance you have to strike with those things. Mostly what you have to be careful with is color—too saturated and it won’t read as a nocturne. So if the color is too bright or saturated you knock it back. Moonlight is just varying degrees of gray and it can be uninteresting, so you inject color, but you have to do it carefully.”

One of the works in the show is Road Hazard, showing a horse and rider encountering a rattlesnake on the trail. The work comes from Anton’s hugely successful solo show from 2019 at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. Incoming Tide, oil, 40 x 48”. Private collection.

“For more than four decades,” says Daniel Finley, executive director at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, “few artists have captured the passionate character of the landscapes, horses and cowboys of the great American West like Bill Anton.”

Bill Anton Paints the West will remain on view through February 28, 2021. —

Bill Anton Paints the West
December 19, 2020 - February 28, 2021
Desert Caballeros Western Museum,
21 North Frontier Street, Wickenburg, AZ 85390
(928) 684-2272,
www.westernmuseum.org