Craig Macnab was born in South Africa and received his MBA degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He says, “My Western art has been accumulated over the past 30 years generally from artists who have become friends and acquaintances.” His early collecting wasn’t as focused as it is today, confessing that in New York in the early 1980s, thinking he wanted to purchase contemporary art, he couldn’t really tell the difference between good college artists and, say, Jasper Johns. “I couldn’t make an informed judgement,” he admits, “and I couldn’t afford it. I went shopping for another genre. I became captivated with the West and started learning about representational art. Today, I am a Western art/representational art nutcase!”
And that’s always a great state to be in to pick out and collect the best of the best.
To the left of the fireplace are, top to bottom, Mountain Blessing Song, oil on linen, by R.S. Riddick and a Wyoming landscape painting by Linda Lillegraven. To the right is Clyde Aspevig’s Winter Evening on the Yampa, oil, painted near the collectors’ home in Steamboat Springs. Beneath it is The Past is Present, 2020, a diptych by Logan Maxwell Hagege. On the mantel is his painting The Tall Flowers.“In my early collecting years,” he explains, “I purchased mainly from Cowboy Artists of America artists but, later, I branched out. I started making an effort to attend CAA shows and other shows like Prix de West, trying to learn about the subject and artists. I got lucky and met some of the artists which made the genre more captivating. I was attracted to the romance of the American West and its rich history. I loved the fact that some of the artists worked so hard at accurate representation. I collected more historical art and then moved into contemporary Western art.”
Two oil portraits by James Bama (1926-2022) are The Young Mountain Man, 1975, and below it is Portrait of Dee, 1974. Dee is the landscape painter George Dee Smith.
Hanging high on the wall is Doorway in the Sky by Logan Maxwell Hagege. The smaller painting, Bucking Bronco, 1906, is by William Herbert “Buck” Dunton.His collection is housed in his homes in Tucson, Arizona, and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as well as his family’s northwest Colorado cattle ranch. The art in this article is in Steamboat Springs.
“I have two extensive collections (8-10 each) of paintings by James Bama and Frank McCarthy that are primarily in Tucson or at my cattle ranch. Most of the Bamas were sourced (resales) from the Big Horn Gallery in Cody, Wyoming, where Bama lived, with an emphasis on Bama’s better paintings from the mid-1970s. The McCarthy paintings have generally been purchased at auction over the past 20 years. There are also plenty of Jim Norton and Grant Redden paintings which are mainly at my ranch where each of them has painted. I’ve generally purchased Jim’s and Grant’s paintings directly from them as I have from John Fawcett who has a summer home in Steamboat Springs.”
He adds, “I was at the right time and the right place to purchase several paintings that had hung on the walls in Don Crowley’s home after he and his wife passed—James Bama, several Crowley pieces, Harley Brown and Ray Swanson.”
Pam Vanatta and Craig Macnab in their Colorado dining room. Peaceful Days, an oil by John Moyers, hangs above the sideboard.Macnab says he was drawn to something fundamentally pure in Bama’s timeless works. “Bama’s paintings are full of passion. He captured emotion in the realness of his paintings. When he moved from illustration to fine art, he brought with him the tools to create realistic color, texture, light and form,” he says. “As I collected his work, dealers became aware that I had a nice collection and would contact me when a great painting came their way.”
In the stairwell are, left to right, John Coleman’s oil Daughter of the Forest People and two oil paintings by James Bama (1926-2022), The Ceremonial Lance, 1990, and below it is A Portrait of Annie Old Crow, 1975.
The accurate realism that Macnab admires in Bama came about when the artist, after a lengthy and successful career as an illustrator, moved to Wyoming where, he said, an artist “can trace the beginnings of Western history; see the oldest weapons, saddles and guns and be close to Indian culture.”
Tom Browning’s After the Gray.
“When I was collecting CAA artists,” he says, “I used the opportunity to get to know the artists and would host dinners, inviting the artists and other friends. John and Sue Coleman are among the people I enjoyed and we became friends. Birds of a feather flock together and I also became friends with Ron Riddick, Jim Norton and Grant Redden. I followed up by staying at Grant’s cabin and riding with him in the Uinta Mountains in Utah. As I got to know Logan Maxwell Hagege, my interest migrated toward more contemporary pieces. I try to have an Arizona influence, and I also purchased works by Ed Mell and John Coleman.”
Navajo Woman, 1981, oil, by James Bama (1926-2022), hangs above The Lost Bucket, oil, by Jim Norton (1953-2023). Next to the Norton is Out of the West, oil, by Robert Pummill and Dave McGary’s bronze Chief Joseph at Battle of Bear Paw. Two paintings by Frank McCarthy (1924-2002) hang on the right. The bottom painting is In the land of the Sparrow Hawk People, 1982, oil. The small bronze beneath the Norton painting is Champion Finish, 1985, by David Cornell.
His connection with Hagege opened up all kinds of collecting opportunities. “Logan and his brother, Beau Alexander, who owns Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Pasadena, embody the cutting edge of contemporary Western art. Logan’s models are actual people, authentic Western human beings,” Macnab comments. “People like John Coleman and Ron Riddick are articulate spokesmen for the passion and feeling they accomplish in their art. Logan is the same with his subject matter. He is doing something different and has developed his own signature. I respect excellence and authenticity and look for it in all of my artists. I have great admiration for artists with background and backbone.”
Dee Smith with Saddle Bag, 1973, oil, by James Bama (1926-2022).
To the left of the doorway are, top to bottom, A Daughter of the Sun by Don Crowley (1926-2019) and San Carlos Dancer by Ray Swanson (1937-2004).
New Snow, 2013, oil, by Grant Redden, hangs in a bedroom.
Acquiring paintings isn’t always easy, especially when commissioning a respected artist to paint something for your collection. “I drove to southern Wyoming to Jim Norton’s cabin to pick up Lost Bucket,a painting I had commissioned,” Macnab relates. “Jim took me in to see what he had done. Maybe my facial expression was less than enthusiastic and Jim was disappointed. He asked me why, and despite the fact that I have no technical training and I can’t paint, I said I thought the painting was incomplete. Jim reluctantly agreed to work on the painting, adding more color and light and a third Indian on horseback to the upper right. I just have the fondest memories of Jim when I see that painting.”
The large painting on the facing wall is Arikara Scout by John Fawcett. On the left are, top to bottom, Lester, 1990, oil, by James Bama (1926-2022) and Rachael, 2002, colored pencil, by Carrie Ballantyne. Macnab continues, “I definitely enjoy being able to sit in a room and look at beautiful art. What captivates me is a painting I can look at regularly over a long period of time and keep finding new elements in it. Everybody should surround themselves with art that they enjoy. Art enhances my life.” —
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