In 1931, Walter Prescott Webb, a proud Texan, published his book The Great Plains, which argued that the 98th meridian was the dividing line between the East and West. “At this fault the ways of life and of living changed. Practically every institution that was carried across it was either broken and remade or else greatly altered,” Webb wrote. The line—which cuts the country in half from the Dakotas to Texas—is purely imaginary, but its presence is felt strongly in San Antonio, which hugs the west side of the 98th.
Brandon Bailey, The Prairie Sky is Wide and High, oil, 33½ x 37½”The Briscoe Western Art Museum, San Antonio’s beacon to the American West, will celebrate its place within the art world beginning March 22 with the return of the Night of Artists exhibition and sale. Eighty-five artists will present nearly 300 works of art during a live auction and by-draw sale. The show, now in its 24th year, predates the museum, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. To mark the anniversary, the museum will unveil its first-ever publication about the permanent collection. The book is titled The West Starts Here, a callback to Webb’s theory about the 98th meridian.
John Coleman, Little Spirit Keeper, charcoal on paper, 37 x 23”
Shawn Cameron, After Hours, oil on linen, 20 x 24”“I’m feeling very good about this year’s exhibition,” says Liz Jackson, the museum’s president and CEO. “It’s always hard to know how it’s going to go until you start seeing the work come in. Once it did start arriving at our doors, I knew we were in for something great. We had many signs pointing up as well, including more sponsorships, more ticket sales, more hotel bookings and really meaningful media sponsors, including Western Art Collector. We are feeling really good going into the show.”
Jackson, who is organizing the show with the help of Michael Duchemin, the Briscoe’s former president, adds that the museum learned a great deal about putting on an event during the Covid years of 2020 and 2021. During the 2020 show, the museum took the entire exhibition online so it could be seen and collectors could bid. Those quick-thinking adaptations stuck and are now part of the show every year. The behind-the-scenes machinery was getting better, but so was the art, which allowed Night of Artists to grow fast.
Jennifer Johnson, Texas Neon, oil on canvas, 24 x 24”
James Morgan, Desert Shadows, oil on linen, 20 x 30”
“We haven’t been around as long as some of the other museums, so we’ve felt like the baby on the block. It also has been unique for us since our show existed before the museum did. Night of Artists provided the seeds for us to even become a museum,” Jackson says. “It’s been so much fun to watch the museum and the show develop and grow from a local and regional show to a larger show that gets national attention. Each of the big museum exhibitions has its own personality, and Night of Artists has its own personality as well. We’re happy to be a part of these great Western traditions.”
Night of Artists begins March 22 with a morning preview event, followed at 1 p.m. by the Collectors Summit featuring live interviews with sculptors Paul Rhymer and painter Kenny McKenna. The summit will be hosted by Western Art Collectorexecutive editor Michael Clawson. The evening of March 22 will have the live auction and dinner. March 23 will begin with an award breakfast and then, at 5:30 p.m., the by-draw sale and reception. All of the opening weekend events are ticketed. The full exhibition will be on view through May 5.
Eric Bowman, Wicked Felina, craftsman-style folding screen with four oil paintings, 69 x 97”
Artists in this year’s show include William Alther, Teal Blake, G. Russell Case, Bruce Cheever, Brent Cotton, Glenn Dean, Teresa Elliott, Donna Howell-Sickles, Z.S. Liang, Jeremy Lipking, Don Oelze, Chad Poppleton, Scott Tallman Powers, Gladys Roldan-de-Moras, Morgan Weistling, Kim Wiggins and many others.
Paul Rhymer, Pancho and Lefty, bronze, ed. of 25, 11 x 12 x 13”
George Hallmark, who announced his retirement in late 2023, will be showing his final museum piece at the show, an Alamo painting titled The Heart of Texas.The famous Battle of the Alamo between Texans and Mexican soldiers took place in February and March of 1836 (just down the street from the Briscoe), but Hallmark’s painting shows the monument in 1920. “In 1850, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, added the familiar arched top to hide a new roof. The building was used as a storehouse for many years after,” the artist writes. “The memory of that great battle provided inspiration to General Sam Houston’s troops on April 21, 1836, at San Jacinto. The cry of ‘Remember the Alamo’ was heard across the battlefield as Houston defeated Santa Anna and gained independence for Texas. 2024 marks the 188th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo.”
Mary Ross Buchholz, Nappin’ Barn Cat, charcoal and graphite on cotton paper, 12 x 19¼”
Abigail Gutting, an up-and-coming painter of horses and Western wildlife, will be showing several new works, including her bison piece Low Rumble and four horses in a moody cloud of dust in Of Ballads and Fables. “Anatomy, motion, character of the animal, light/dark…all play a role in how I choose my painting subjects. The personality or will of the animals is just as much a part of the painting’s story, as the composition,” she says of her paintings. “Horses in action never fail to show me new artistic possibility and it’s always exciting to watch for it. When I’m out with my camera, I learned a long time ago to have an open mind regarding reference material because I always end up with possibilities I never expected.”
Kenny McKenna, Palo Duro Wash, oil on linen, 42 x 30”
Oregon-based painter Eric Bowman will be presenting a craftsman-style folding screen with four oil paintings. Titled Wicked Felina, the piece will be a follow-up to a painted folding screen he brought to the Prix de West in 2023. The four paintings depict the story sung by Marty Robbins in his 1959 song “El Paso.”
Mikel Donahue, Moonlight Ladies, acrylic, 18 x 14½”
“‘El Paso’ has been a favorite song of mine for years—it’s such a great story with those engaging, almost yodel-type inflections that Robbins adds; a true, Western ballad classic. After last year’s Prix de West, I had been toying with doing another folding screen since that one had been such a hit, but I wanted the next one to be more sequential and not just a collection of four stand-alone pictures, plus making these is time-consuming and quite expensive…I listen to a lot of old music—pop, rock, jazz—and this song pops up on the radio from time to time as it was a huge crossover hit the year I was born. It even won a Grammy in 1961.
Howard Post, On the Ridge, oil, 24 x 30”
William Haskell, Night Crossing, acrylic on panel, 16 x 12”
So, about the time I was trying to come up with something sequential within the Western genre, ‘El Paso’ came on the commercial-free station I listen to out of Hillsboro, Oregon. Having some background in comic book art and storyboard work from my illustration days, I immediately began picturing how I would break down this ballad into four scenes that would tell the story,” Bowman says. “There is so much visual poetry going on in Robbins’ song that I spent at least two weeks just scribbling out the possibilities in my sketchbook! Eventually, I formulated a tactic of starting with the opening lyric to introduce the character of (wicked) Felina, and then ending with the closing lyric of the anti-hero/narrator dying in her arms. Once those two panels were established, I had to find a balance with the middle scenes that conveyed the rest of the story. I cheated a little by adding the visual of ‘The White Puff of Smoke From the Rifle’ in the third painting even though that line is further along in the story than the lyric written on that panel. The lyrics themselves had to be edited as well so as not to take up too much room on each panel—basically one sentence per painting. I also wanted the hand-lettering to have a vintage feel, so I opted to place them on parchment-like banners, reminiscent of Golden Age book illustration. Finally, I had to title it, and Wicked Felina seemed more apropos than just plain old El Paso. I am also fortunate to have a beautiful, Costa Rican-born second cousin who agreed to model for the Felina character…I hope it will resonate with the Texans down at the Night of Artists show.”
Abigail Gutting, Of Ballads and Fables, oil on linen, 30 x 48”Elsewhere in the show is Shawn Cameron’s After Hours, showing two cowboys riding into twilight. “The subjects of the painting are [my husband] Dean in the back and our son, Brooks, in the foreground. It is a scene from the family ranch that Brooks now runs south of the Grand Canyon. It was inspired by a memory of Dean’s many days riding that began before daylight and ended coming home after dark,” Cameron says. “It seemed if the moonlight was good, his days were longer. The horses are walking out, knowing they are headed home. On these days I would tell myself not to worry until a specific time of night or I’d do nothing but fret. Much prayer, on my side, was involved in those late nights on horseback in rugged country.” —
Night of Artists
March 22-May 5, 2024
Collectors Summit, March 22, 1-3 p.m.
Exhibition Preview, Live Auction & Dinner, March 22, 5:30-10 p.m.
Artists Awards Breakfast, March 23, 9-11 a.m.
Ticket Holder Exhibition Preview, March 23, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Grand Exhibition Opening, Luck of the Draw Sale & Reception, March 23, 5:30-10 p.m.
Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market Street, San Antonio, TX 78205
(210) 299-4499, www.briscoemuseum.org
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