It was late 2019 the last time the Cowboy Artists of America members showed their work as a group, or even appeared in public together. That’s just two years ago, but it feels like an eon in pandemic time.
That brutal streak is ending November 5 when the CA returns to Fort Worth, Texas, for its 55th annual exhibition and sale. The members couldn’t be more thrilled. “I’m beyond excited to get back in that saddle,” says CA president Grant Redden. “We miss our old friends and the opportunity to meet new ones. No one could have foreseen this long of a delay for our show, but here we are. The chaos of the last two years has been intense, so we’re all ready to get back to showing art and meeting collectors.”
C. Michael Dudash, Daylight ‘N’ Dust, oil on linen, 36 x 40”
Redden adds that the pandemic hit the CA at a terrible time. The November 2019 show represented a huge period of growth for the group, especially as the members stepped out on their own to produce and put on a successful exhibition without major museum support. By the next spring, with Covid picking up steam, a miniature show was canceled, as was the major annual exhibition not long after. The group did hold its annual trail ride at the Spade Ranch on the Texas Panhandle, but it was scaled back and several key members couldn’t make the trip. The first half of 2021 was more of the same—doubt and uncertainty.
Grant Redden, Spade Ranch Action, oil, 30 x 30”
John Coleman, Wild Horses II, oil on canvas, 27 x 17½”
Then the clouds parted and the sun started shining through. The CA partnered with the Fort Worth Stock Show, hired a new business manager, and the makings of a show started to materialize.
And now they’re back.
“We knew things were coming together when we started holding weekly meetings via Zoom,” Redden says. “The members have been super accommodating, as have our supporters. We just want to show some artwork again.”
Redden will be bringing an astounding collection of new pieces, including Spade Ranch Action, inspired by the 2020 trail ride. Other pieces include the nocturne Night Herder, a valley picture with a horse and rider titled Artifacts, and Winter Trail, a snow scene that’s more landscape than cowboys. “If the CA is going to survive and stay relevant, we have to bring great work and have a successful show. And I know these guys are bringing some of their best stuff,” Redden adds. “This is a can’t-miss show.”
Tom Browning, Runnin’ the Ridge, oil, 18 x 36”
Clark Kelley Price, Rocky Mountain Caravan, oil, 24 x 36”
C. Michael Dudash, who’s soared while a member of the CA and is continuously raising the bar on his own work, will be showing a number of large pieces, including three measuring 40, 48 and 54 inches wide. And they’re epic paintings that capture stories of the West in vivid color. In Daylight ‘N’ Dust, Dudash paints golden light cascading down a hillside after a cluster of cattle and several cowboys maintaining order on the herd. “I recently had a chance to see the beautiful sight of cowboys ‘n’ cattle in the early morning pushing through the hills to greener pastures,” he says. “The misty sky created a beautiful backdrop for the rim-lit cattle, and the rising dust gave the whole scene a dream-like quality. Knowing that this event is still a reality in parts of the American West puts a smile on my face, and it was a moment that begged to be captured in a painting.”
Phil Epp, Open Spaces, acrylic on board, 30 x 40”
Chad Poppleton, The Road to Jericho, oil, 30 x 48”
In several works, Dudash turns to Native American subject matter, including in The Quiet Voice of a Water’s Fall, which shows a single horse and rider silhouetted by the mist of a crashing waterfall. “If you’ve ever had the opportunity to sit beside a beautiful waterfall as its water cascades down the face of a rocky cliff, you may understand the meaning of this paintings title,” he explains. “The rhythmic sounds and powerful spray that make the initial experience so dramatic tend to evolve into the form of a peaceful ‘quiet’ that can be almost hypnotic in feeling and mood. This single brave mounted on his sure-footed pony are surely enjoying just such a moment.”
Tim Cox, Warm Evening, Cool Water, oil, 16 x 20”
Phil Epp, another relatively new CA member, is another artist who is turning in exciting and fresh work that has found an awesome niche within the group. His large acrylic pieces often focus on the vast scale and scope of the West, and how the sky seems to dwarf all that stand before it. Open Spaces is one of those pieces, with a trio of horses on a hilltop as the sky seems to free them from the earth and gravity. “I was interested in maximizing the depth or space in this image, mostly via the sky,” Epp says. “I always thought it was odd that painters could use texture to show open sky, although I know many are successful with color and shape. My goal was to portray the sky in this painting so that it appears as a distant vapor. I want the viewer to sense the depth and the porous atmosphere.”
Martin Grelle, In Her Finery, oil on linen, 30 x 30”
Teal Blake, Untitled Nocturne, watercolor, 16 x 20”
Longtime member Wayne Baize, will be showing a lovely father-daughter scene with several riders and a string of horses. The work, titled The Making of Memories, has a dynamic composition and lively color. “This young cowgirl will long remember the time she went with the wagon on roundup,” the artist says. “What an exciting time in her young life. Years from now she will probably tell her grandchildren about it.” Another work, a panoramic 10-by-32-inch painting titled Hoof Beats, is meant to invoke sound within the viewers. “The sound of the horses as the remuda passes by is a sight and sound to excite the soul,” he adds.
Wayne Baize, The Making of Memories, oil, 24 x 30”
Chad Poppleton will be showing both Old West and wildlife scenes. One of his works is The Road to Jericho, and it was inspired by a 1980 photo shoot he was at as a boy. “So I had this old photo of a mountain man running off a river bank from way back when my dad was painting. It’s always intrigued me and someday I was going to come up with the right concept to use it. I was five years old when the photo was taken and that would have been 1980,” Poppleton says. “Reading a book titled Journal of a Fur Trapper by Osborne Russell, it told a few exciting stories of incidents involving grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains. While reading one story, the photo of the mountain man popped into my head and I knew where it needed to be used. From then on, I went through all my reference looking for the perfect setting and characters to portray the plot.”
Poppleton continues: “This particular bear used in this piece came from a two-day session of a mother grizzly with a new cub on a moose kill near Togwotee Pass in Wyoming. The other characters came from my photo sessions of friends modelling on my horses. The gesture of each animal is critical to the attitude and drama for the piece to succeed. The riderless horse, the freaked-out pack animals, and the ‘What on earth?’ behavior of the mountain men who are on horseback play a crucial role in the scene. The setting was Hoback River in northwestern Wyoming, where, from my reference, Osborne Russell traveled in the book mentioned earlier. I thought it would be more fitting as a viewer to determine their own outcome from the story. The title wasn’t decided until the piece was almost done. Jericho to Jerusalem is a notoriously dangerous road nicknamed ‘Road of Blood’ because of all the robbing and murders of the travelers on it. It was the road used in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The early explorers of the West had no less trouble than those who traveled to Jericho.”
Tyler Crow, Beside Still Waters, charcoal, 27½ x 20¼”
Dustin Payne, Tales of the Trail, clay for bronze, ed. of 17, 18 x 27”
The sculptors showing at this year’s CA show include Bill Nebeker, T.D. Kelsey, emeritus member John Coleman, and Dustin Payne, who will be bringing Tales of the Trail, a sculpture showing numerous figures standing around a bar listening to adventures of the West. “There is nothing better than good stories and good company,” Payne says. “This sculpture was inspired by the story of an old cowboy describing his first meeting with famed Texas trail-driver ‘Teddy Blue’ Abbott in a saloon in Red Lodge, Montana. Boy, I would have loved to have been able to hear the tales these characters would have told.”
In addition to the exhibition and sale, which will be held at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, the CA show will again feature discussions with the members, a Q&A panel and art demonstrations at nearby museums, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Cowgirl Hall of Fame & Museum and the Sid Richardson Museum. Visitors are encouraged to stay up-to-date on show information by visiting the group’s website. —
Cowboy Artists of America 55th Annual Exhibition & Sale
November 5-6, 2021
Will Rogers Memorial Center, 3401 W. Lancaster Avenue, Fort Worth, TX 76107
www.cowboyartistsofamerica.com
Powered by Froala Editor
