Paved in Gold
Jeremy Winborg makes a triumphant return to Great Falls for his fourth Russell live auction.
In 2017, Utah-based painter Jeremy Winborg arrived in Great Falls, Montana, for his first experience with The Russell live auction. He brought a piece that had a high estimate of $6,500 and it sold for more than $10,500. For the 2018 sale, Winborg brought High-caliber, a work with a high estimate of $9,200. It sold for more than $52,000, a world auction record for the young artist. Collectors who had seen both sales could have easily quoted that famous line from Django Unchained: “You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.”
Since that one-two punch at back-to-back sales in Great Falls, Winborg has been one of the rising stars to emerge from the auction.
“The day of the [2018] auction was a bleak, stormy day in Great Falls and it sort of seemed like the roads were paved in mud,” he recalls. “I was in a fender bender right before the auction and I really wasn’t having the greatest of Great Falls experiences. After Little Ass Kicker sold, the whole city drastically changed—suddenly it felt like the roads were paved in gold.”
For the 2020 sale, Winborg returns with a sequel of sorts to his hit 2018 piece. The work is titled Kicking Ass & Taking Names, and comes with an estimate of $21,000 to $25,000.
“The museum puts on a great event. It’s more like a party than an auction—but it’s a wonderful auction, too—plus the people that attend the auction are really big fans of
Western art,” he says. “The people I’ve sold my artwork to have become great friends, too. My work is well received in Great Falls because I’m bringing something new to the table without being too extreme. I think that the more seasoned collectors enjoy seeing something a little bit different but that’s still in their wheelhouse and those that are newer to Western art world find my work interesting and refreshing with the juxtaposition between the realism and the abstract backgrounds.”
He continues, “There are so many fantastic traditional Western artists out there and
I believe there will always be a market for traditional Western art. That being said, I think adding contemporary Western art to these auctions is not only exciting to the existing collectors but also brings in an additional collector base that might not be attracted to traditional Western art in general. I feel like seasoned collectors and new collectors alike enjoy seeing something new and contemporary coming to the auction block.”