Capturing a Feeling

The Booth Western Art Museum highlights the work of Arturo Chávez and Grant Redden during a prominent dual exhibition.

Two huge names in Western art are coming together for a phenomenal exhibition at the Booth Western Art Museum. The large-scale landscape paintings of Arturo Chávez and the cowboy/ranching scenes of Cowboy Artists of America member Grant Redden are placed center stage during Western Vistas: Arturo Chávez and Grant Redden. From sprawling wilderness panoramas to intimate scenes of ranching life, each artist captures in stunning detail the myriad elements that make the West what it is. Arturo Chávez, La Luz del Sol, oil, 48 x 96”Chávez has been drawing and painting since kindergarten, but began to focus seriously on his art at age 30. “I was trained in concert and classical guitar, but unfortunately at the end of the day when I put my guitar down, I didn’t feel like it was still making music,” he says. With visual art, he says, the music never stops. The artist’s process is a combination of plein air and studio painting, but in his heart— it would be impossible to paint his large-scale paintings in the field. Instead, he’ll create a quick sketch outdoors to capture the feeling, then work in the studio to capture that memory permanently.

The artist is also a pilot, having earned his pilot’s license in his 20s and joining the Civil Air Patrol. It’s no surprise, then, that skyward views inform many of his paintings. For instance, he used to fly over the Grand Canyon when it was legal to do so and take aerial pictures of its intricate geologic features. “I got very familiar with the Grand Canyon from the air,” says Chávez. “Since then I’ve done so many aerial scenes…Aerial views are some of my very favorites.”Arturo Chávez, Above the Whirling Din, oil, 24 x 36”Above the Whirling Din is a truly breathtaking piece taken from a plane above the clouds. “We’re seeing pure sky, clouds and sunset. No ground at all,” says the artist. “I get the feeling I’m in the airplane again, flying in the sunset.” Chávez became a commercial drone pilot a few years ago.

For Redden, born and raised in southwest Wyoming on a sheep and cattle ranch, the West is in his blood. “I grew up riding horses…my family is from pioneer stock,” says the CAA painter, who was inducted into the prestigious group in 2012. “The West is part of my heritage, and that’s probably primarily the reason I paint what I paint. And it’s because I’ve experienced it myself, out working, being a part of the landscape, being a part of the people.” Grant Redden, Listening to the Coyote’s Howl, oil on canvas, 20 x 18”

Grant Redden, Horse Wrangler, oil on canvas, 40 x 36”Beyond subject matter, however, Redden says he’s often thinking about how to deal with pigments, surfaces, compositions and design. “I have deceased artists that I really admire and study, [thinking about] how they put together a painting in terms of design and surface, how did they [achieve] the colors they’re trying,” he says, citing the greats like Frank Tenney Johnson, William R. Leigh, Carl Rungius and many of the Taos artists. Grant Redden, Summer Days, oil on canvas, 25 x 30”

One of Redden’s paintings in the Booth show, Listening to the Coyote’s Howl, is a nocturne of a man on horseback with cattle grazing behind him. “I love nocturnes because there’s something magical about moonlight on the landscape and the animals,” says the artist. “I just keep trying to get close to the feeling I get when I’m out under the moonlight…Frank Tenney Johnsons’ nocturnes really hit that spot for me…It seems like at night everything settles down, it’s quiet. The moonlight permeates everything with this bluish or greenish cast.” This particular scene, Redden says, was a cattle branding the artist attended in the middle of the day in bright sunlight that he ultimately decided to turn into a night scene. “What’s fun about nocturnes is that you get to invent a lot of the color,” he adds.

Western Vistas will be on view at the Booth Museum from June 4 to September 18, and both artists agree that it’s an honor to be showing their work side by side. Arturo Chávez, Navajo Buttes, oil 32 x 40”Redden, who is always looking toward new pastures in his growth as an artist, says “I’d love to come back and do this again in a couple years and see where my work has gone.” —

Western Vistas: Arturo Chávez and Grant Redden
June 4-September 18, 2022
Booth Western Art Museum, 501 Museum Drive, Cartersville, GA 30120
(770) 387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org