In 2022, the Prix de West celebrated its 50th anniversary and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum pulled out all the stops to deliver a truly magical celebration, exhibition and sale. By all accounts it was a huge success. How does a museum follow up on that banner year? Well, it gets back to the basics of showing important artwork by the top Western artists working today.
R.S. Riddick, Lakota Dawn, oil, 54 x 36”This year’s Prix de West opens June 2 in Oklahoma City, though most collectors will want to mark their calendars for June 9 and 10, when the museum hosts the sale and a bevy of other activities related to the opening of the exhibition. Events include receptions, seminars, demonstrations, a live auction, a celebration dinner and art presentations by Andrew Peters, Dean Mitchell, Z.S. Liang and Kyle Polzin, who won the 2022 museum purchase award.
Logan Maxwell Hagege, Forget Me Not, oil on linen, 31 x 32”“Prix de West is such a significant event because it showcases diverse interpretations of the West by some of the most talented artists in the world,” says Pat Fitzgerald, museum president and CEO. “Every work of art displayed in the show tells a story, and it’s amazing to see a visual representation of the artists’ experiences and relationship to this very special culture.”
Artists in the show include a who’s who of top Western artists: William Acheff, Bill Anton, Carrie Ballantyne, Greg Beecham, Thomas Blackshear II, Tom Browning, Scott Burdick, George Carlson, G. Russell Case, John Coleman, Brent Cotton, Teresa Elliott, Bruce Greene, Martin Grelle, Oreland Joe, Daniel J. Keys, Jeremy Lipking, David Mann, Paul Moore, Bill Nebeker, Don Oelze, Howard Post, Grant Redden, Gladys Roldan-de-Moras, Kyle Sims, Curt Walters and many others.
Glenn Dean, Daughter of the Desert, oil, 24 x 24”
John Coleman, Sun Vow, oil, 28 x 16½”R.S. Riddick will be returning to the Prix de West and will be bringing a sequel to Lakota Water Maidens, a work he completed for the 2000 exhibition. The new piece, titled Lakota Dawn, shows a similar subject of Native American women refilling containers with water amid glorious light. “Living water is the essence of life. As the blush of dawn embraces the new day, three young maidens meet at the sweetwater’s edge,” Riddick says. “The sounds of nature break the hush with the promise of a new day, while the Lakota maidens fill their brass vessels with the sustaining waters of life.”
Tim Cherry, Dreams of Salmon, bronze, ed. of 18, 13 x 8 x 3”
Morgan Weistling, The Blacksmith’s Apprentice, 1879, oil on linen, 35 x 44”
Logan Maxwell Hagege, a favorite of collectors at the annual show, will be showing a stunning new piece titled Forget Me Not. “In the fall of 2015, while visiting my newly purchased painting cabin in a remote part of northcentral Arizona, my dad and I took a break from fixing the house to go on a hike. We walked down the back part of my property towards a creek,” the artist says. “Walking through the remote desert, I recall fantasizing about finding some old animal bones, which is always one of the things I look for when exploring the desert. Within five minutes, my dad stops and looks into a bush and says, ‘That looks like a cow skull.’ I didn’t even look up and said, ‘It’s probably a half-buried plastic bag…’ Sure enough, he reached down and picked up a perfectly preserved cow skull. I couldn’t believe his luck that day. My dad passed away six years later, and I am so grateful to have that memory. This painting is about remembrance. The decaying wooden corral a few minutes away from my painting cabin, no longer in use. The cow skull, found by my dad in the barren desert, bleached white from the unforgiving Arizona sun. And the memory of a loved one.”
Eric Bowman, The Four Seasons, oil on folding four-panel folding screen, 69 x 97”
Z.S. Liang will be showing his 56-inch-wide painting Blessing the Hide of the Mountain Ghost, which also takes great care with the remnants of an animal. The image shows a group of Native American subjects honoring an animal hide that is outstretched before them. “After a long day of tracking an evasive predator, these hunters have secured the hide of a mountain lion. And this painting depicts a traditional Blackfeet ceremony of preparing the powerful mountain lion’s hide, so that it can be made into bow/arrow and quiver cases,” Liang says. “The Blackfeet did this because they believed that the hide of a mountain lion had mystical powers of strength—that would be transferred to their bow cases and quivers.”
Z.S. Liang, Blessing the Hide of the Mountain Ghost, oil on linen, 36 x 56”
George Hallmark, West of the Pecos, oil on linen, 36 x 48”
Morgan Weistling will be returning to the Prix de West with his work The Blacksmith’s Apprentice, 1879, showing two figures in a darkened blacksmith shop as master and apprentice toil away over hot metal and hotter coals. “The American blacksmith was a crucial profession that helped forge the Old West frontier. From horseshoes to repairing carriages and wagons, blacksmiths were relied upon the way auto mechanics are today,” Weistling says. “I was inspired to depict this father and son apprenticeship as this noble tradition was passed to the next generation. My father was a locksmith and I was his apprentice for many years, and working on this painting brought back many warm memories of learning my father’s craft and the bonding that took place between us.”
James Morgan, Moon Song, oil on linen, 20 x 30”
Josh Elliott, Frozen Opalescence, oil, 46 x 48”
Nostalgia for an older time and place also plays a role in some of the work of George Hallmark, who will be offering his painting West of the Pecos, which shows a horse outside the wooden building that housed the famous Judge Roy Bean. “Far west Texas, between the Pecos and the Rio Grande rivers, has always been a hostile land. It has been said that every living thing has a claw or a thorn. Into this desolation ventured one of Texas’ most colorful characters, Roy Bean. By the spring of 1882, he had established a small saloon near the Pecos River in a tent city he named Vinegarroon, named for a whip-tailed scorpion,” Hallmark says. “At the request of the Texas Rangers, Bean was appointed Justice of the Peace in August 1882. He named his courthouse/saloon the Jersey Lilly after the English actress Lily Langtry. Not your typical courthouse, it nevertheless provided both entertainment and justice, west of the Pecos.”
Howard Post, Morning Turnout, oil, 24 x 48”
Terri Kelly Moyers, Season’s End – Lake McArthur, oil, 36 x 36”
Eric Bowman, who’s relatively new to the Prix de West but has already had an epic run at the show, will be showing a unique folding screen with four separate season-themed paintings on it. “The Four Seasons is a one-of-a-kind, custom-made Arts & Crafts-style folding screen,” he says. “It measures 69 inches by 97 inches when fully extended. It was made entirely with quarter-sawn oak with gold leaf and antique hinges complete with old-school flare-head screws.” The piece, a likely first for the show, should thrill collectors.
Gladys Roldan-de-Moras, Siempre, oil on linen, 48 x 36”
The Prix de West continues through August 6. —
Prix de West
June 2-August 6, 2023
June 9, 10:15 a.m., presentation by Z.S. Liang
June 9, 1-3 p.m., presentations by painters Andrew Peters and Dean Mitchell
June 9, 6 p.m., cocktail reception
June 10, 10 a.m., presentation by Kyle Polzin
June 10, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., seminar luncheon and awards presentation
June 10, 1-2:30 p.m., art demonstrations by Scott L. Christensen and Sherrie McGraw
June 10, 5:30 p.m.-9:30, sale, awards ceremony, live auction and celebration dinner
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
1700 Northeast 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111
(405) 478-2250, pdw.nationalcowboymuseum.org
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