Masters of the American West
Los Angeles, CA
The Masters of the American West returns for its 22nd annual exhibition and sale at the Autry Museum of the American West February 9 in Los Angeles. This year 64 artists, representing many facets of Western art, will participate in the popular show that has drawn collectors together from all around the country.
“Masters in 2019 continues to expand its footprint in the world of contemporary art of the American West, a place as diverse as the artistic traditions represented throughout its long history,” says Amy Scott, the museum’s Chief Curator and Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts. “Masters celebrates these histories through images and narratives that speak to the exceptional environment, cultural past and dynamic present of the American West.”
Artists participating in this year’s show include William Acheff, Thomas Blackshear II, Christopher Blossom, Eric Bowman, John Buxton, George Carlson, Tim Cherry, Len Chmiel, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Z.S. Liang, Jeremy Lipking, Mark Maggiori, Dean Mitchell, John Moyers, Terri Kelly Moyers, Bill Nebeker, Howard Post, Billy Schenck, Mian Situ, Curt Walters, Jim Wilcox and many others. The show also features an expanding lineup of top Native American artists, all of them doing work in a cutting edge contemporary style. Those artists are Tony Abeyta, Tammy Garcia, Doug Hyde, Oreland Joe, Kevin Red Star and
Mateo Romero.
New artists to this year’s show are cowboy painter Eric Bowman, landscape painter G. Russell Case and Howard Post, who is known for his colorful and contemporary images of ranches, Arizona scenery and cattle.
New Mexico painter Kim Wiggins usually debuts a new large-scale work at the Masters, and this year will be no different when he presents Big Medicine, a 48-by-72-inch paintings that shows a Native American hunter on horseback as he chases down a buffalo. The work is done in Wiggins’ familiar mixture of regionalism and New Mexico modernism that give his paintings a unique look and feel. “The Comanche were considered the finest horsemen in the world and the most powerful of the Plains Indian culture. Their exploits on horseback were legendary, making them the absolute masters of the Southern Plains for nearly 200 years. Their lives had been transformed with the coming of the horse replacing the dog as the primary utility animal
and beast of burden. Following the Pueblo revolt in 1680, great numbers of horses escaped or were stolen from the Spanish. These untamed animals soon formed the vast mustang herds of the Southwest. They were highly prized among the Native people, and soon the paint horse became the most favored breed among the Plains tribes,” Wiggins says. “…The decoration of the Plains warrior and his horse told much about his life and every mark held meaning. Here various symbols speak more than words to the viewer in regards to valor and achievements. Designs were painted with purpose and fully expected to hold magical properties and powers. Feathers spoke of exploits such as quillwork bands for each killed foe. An eagle feather with the sides partially removed represented counting coup five times. Plains tribes viewed the owl as a protector and wore owl feathers to ward off evil spirits. The sacred buffalo is painted in blue on the warriors chest with lightning bolts. Blue was the color of
wisdom and confidence and the zig-zag lines represented power and strength. Coup marks are seen on the warrior’s legs representing acts of bravery against the enemy. The red hand lines down his face represent the enemy killed in hand-to-hand combat. His horse is also decorated with many honors as seen by the medicine symbol on the front shoulder— thus the title, Big Medicine—as well as coup marks across the nose of the steed and horse raid symbols on his hind quarters. Even the circled eye speaks to the horse’s power to foresee oncoming danger.”
Oreland Joe will also be showing a Native American rider in one of his works. Joe, who has been expanding an interest in ledger-inspired oil paintings, will be bringing both painted works and sculpture to the Masters. One of his paintings is Hailstone Dreamer, which features the Cheyenne warrior Roman Nose who lived during the period of the 1840s.
“Roman Nose, the famed Cheyenne warrior, approached Ice, a prominent Cheyenne medicine person,” Joe explains. “Ice shared a vision dream of a powerful warrior and how he battled with a one-horned war bonnet. The night was filled with lightning and hail. The bonnet was made for Roman Nose. With power of wind, lightning and hailstones. The medicine paint and symbology was also shared with his warhorse. He won and fought in many battles on behalf of the people.”
Like Wiggins, John Fawcett will draw attention to the role of horses in the West with his oil painting Under the Cover of Darkness, which shows a brazen pony theft by nighttime raiders. In other works, such as Ashley Greets Beckwourth, horses play supporting roles to fur traders and explorers. “James Beckwourth (1798-1866) was mixed race, born into slavery in Virginia, and was freed by his master (and father), and later relocated to St. Louis where he made connections with fur traders,” Fawcett says. “He was hired in 1824 by Wm. Ashley, who founded the Rocky Mtn. Fur Co., as a wrangler on his expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains. The adventurous young men who joined up were known as ‘Ashley’s Hundred.’ Ashley, an entrepreneur, devised the rendezvous system where trappers, fur traders and Indians would gather annually to exchange goods and socialize. Beckwourth became a legendary guide and trapper, and lived with the Crow tribe, even marrying a chief’s daughter. Before Beckwourth eventually left the Rocky Mtn. Fur Co., Ashley looked to him for assistance with trails, the best hunting and trapping areas, and in dealing with Indians. Here, the two greet each other at a rendezvous after a long absence.”
The Weistling family will once again show a strong presence at the show, with new works by Morgan Weistling, his wife Joann Peralta and their daughter Brittany Weistling, who has long been the youngest artist to participate in the show. Morgan will be presenting Piggies, which shows a young girl feeding small pigs in a hay-strewn barn. “Friends come in many shapes and sizes and sometimes they are pigs. Paige knows the personalities of all these porkers and is used to their rude behavior,” he says. “It took me awhile to get used to them but Paige was at ease with these ruffians and knew how to handle them. I was inspired by the shafts of the afternoon sun
that burst into the barn to bathe their dining experience in warmth and I wanted to capture it on canvas.”
Peralta will be showing Spanish Tapestries, a portrait of a young girl in an open barn door. “Every inch of this painting was carefully thought out with respect to design, arrangement, harmonious color and subject matter. I treated it as a tapestry of variant thoughts involving abstract and literal elements. The hand touching the door is taking on a contemporary, modernist approach in the paint as it feels the cool of the outside air,” she says. “…The asymmetrical balance is dependent on the hand reaching out and touching the door, for without the hand in that area the balance would shift to the viewers left and the design would be off-balance. I integrated Wassily Kandinsky’s thinking in asymmetry when composing my subject. But, what does the title mean? It is another layer, a tapestry, which is also defined as an intricate or complex combination of things or sequence of events. My personal Spanish tapestry is that I am not only representing a part of America by which my ancestors, the Spaniards, were a part of defining. But, I am made up of other origins as well, a tapestry, of other ethnicities. However, what it all comes down to is that I am primarily an American and these ethnicities are woven into my fabric of whom I am, but this country I live in is what embraces all those different woven-in elements and creates my new diverse story on this soil I live on. Thanks in no small part to generations before me. I hope you look at this and think of your own tapestries that make up your fabric. There are many more metaphorical weavings, but I leave you, the viewer, to come up with more of your own.”
The Masters exhibition opens on February 9 to the public, but an artist dinner and exhibition preview will take place on February 8. On the opening day, February 9, the Autry will host a presentation from sculptor Sandy Scott at 10:30 a.m., a chuck wagon lunch and awards ceremony at noon, and a panel discussion about trends and innovation in Western art at 2 p.m. That evening, beginning at 5:30 p.m. is the reception and fixed-price, by-draw sale.
The entire exhibition will remain on view at the Autry through March 24.