William Matthews retreats to the private, compact, 1,000-square-foot studio behind his home in Denver, where he has lived since 1980. There, he paints the watercolors of the working cowboy West that have brought him fame across the globe. His public face can be seen in the William Matthews Studio in the RiNo Art District just north of downtown Denver.
At the studio, there is a shop where Brien McDonald has been making frames for 27 years. “Brien doesn’t need to build frames all the time, so he spends part of his time building furniture, which I design. We use the studio space for exhibitions of my paintings and many other events. My wife is on several community boards and we’ve hosted events for some of them, including Children’s Hospital Colorado. We’ve also had lots of parties for our kids.
Painter William Matthews in his Denver studio. He wears a Native American bolo, a subject he is writing a book about.“My painting studio is my kiva,” he says. “It’s not a place I allow people into.” It was a rare moment to let Rob Hammer into that oasis to take photographs for Western Art Collector. Painting was his sanctuary when he was a boy. “I would sit with my watercolors and Arches block in my lap and paint. And I would disappear into meditation, something I still do today.
“I have to have privacy when I’m working. I’ve always got ideas, projects I’m toying with, in various states of gestation. I don’t want anybody’s input. I don’t want anyone to see unfinished work or to make comments. I won’t show the work to anyone but my wife, and Becky Stevens, our gallery director. And I may or may not listen to their responses.”
William Matthews in his art studio in Denver. Few people are allowed in this special space.
Prominent in the studio as well as in the downtown space are books. “I have amazing books,” he admits. “I’ve been collecting for a long time. Here in the studio I have a special bookcase of old art books—primers on how to paint that go back to about 1805, sign writers’ books, books on type design. I inherited my grandfather’s books on type and design. I have reference books on architecture, which is an important part of my life. And I have lots of books on Native American jewelry and jewelers’ biographies. I also have books on Asian garden design and some old cowboy poetry books.”
Matthews also writes his own books and is about to wrap up a big one on bolos. (He’s known for wearing beautiful bolos.) “I’m surprised no one has done a photographic book celebrating their beauty,” he says. “We’re doing tabletop photography of the bolos in the downtown studio. Some are pieces I’ve borrowed from collectors, and some from my own collection. And there are bolos from the great museums as well. The book is almost done, but I still have more writing to do. I’m not proficient as a writer, but I like the process and the more writing I do, the better I get.”
Painting supplies fill a table and wall on one side of the Denver studio.
His book collection is eclectic to say the least—as are his other collections. Downtown you can see part of his collection of old porcelain signage that he’s been putting together since the 1960s both in the states and when he was living in Europe. There are also beautiful English and French watercolor presentation boxes with ceramic palettes, solid pigments and, often, an original crystal glass cup for water.
William Matthews works on a piece in his studio.
In the downtown studio, hanging high on the wall and in display cases are items from his collection of guitars. When we spoke several years ago, at which time there was a retrospective of five decades of his career at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, he told me about his early interest in guitars.
The artist at work.
He started taking guitar lessons in his teens and would play his Martin guitar and sing at his parents’ dinner parties. Years later he met Chris Martin, the sixth generation of the guitar-making family, at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Martin wanted him to produce an acoustic guitar with a Western scene painted on its surface like those used by the singing cowboy legends of the past. He has since produced several limited-edition guitars for Martin.
The artist’s guitar collection. Courtesy William Matthews.
He told me, “A lot of cowboys play acoustic guitar. There is a direct correlation between them and acoustic instruments. I would often take out a banjo or a guitar when I was camping with the lads out on the wagon.” When he takes a break from painting, he will pick up a guitar and play while he walks around the studio. “It’s not that the music will inspire the next brushstrokes,” he comments. “Music and painting become complementary elements. They have some of the same language—rhythm, texture, color, nuance—but they’re different mediums, and you can achieve different things.”
The art library in the downtown studio. Courtesy William Matthews.
He reveals that he does let his grandchildren into the studio from time to time. “They love to goof around. We make art in the kitchen, though, with paints and markers. My 2-year-old grandson has been to the rodeo and knows what’s going on. He’ll point to a painting and say ‘ride bull’ or ‘cowboy, open gate!’”
Matthews’ art career began when he lived in Los Angeles and designed album covers for Warner Bros. and Capitol Records. He moved to Ireland in 1977, during the renaissance of Irish folk music. There was no one doing album covers, so he opened a design studio and for several years worked with the best musicians in Ireland.
Gallery space for William Matthews’ works. Courtesy William Matthews.
In several of those ironic “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” situations, his son Austin owns Recollect Records in Denver, specializing in classic vinyl records. His daughter Alistair, a photographer in New York, founded Le Puzz, a jigsaw puzzle company during Covid. She and co-founder Michael Hunter write, “We’re Le Puzz and we love jigsaw puzzles! We especially love collecting vintage puzzles from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s with an odd sense of humor.”
William Matthews in his art library, which includes books he inherited from his father.
In his own generation, he and his siblings follow in the footsteps of their artist mother. Although a watercolorist, Matthews has been trying his hand at oil painting. “I feel like I’m channeling my mother when I’m painting with oils,” he says. His sister, Kim Matthews Wheaton, is a landscape painter in Washington and his sister, Cary Nowell, is a designer in San Francisco. His brother, Peter Matthews, is an architect in New York. Art unifies all of them.
Despite his wide variety of interests, Matthews continues to be inspired by the landscape and cowboy life of Colorado where he has lived for 53 years. —
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