Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale
The Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale goes virtual this year with much anticipation.
Denver, CO
Usually held alongside the National Western Stock Show, which is currently postponed until 2022, the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale will proceed with their contemporary Western works as a virtual online event and auction. Taking current changes in stride, the exhibit will not have a featured artist this year, but will instead showcase past featured artists such as William Matthews (1994), Karmel Timmons (2008), Quang Ho (2014) and Sophy Brown (2020).
This year’s event continues to uphold contemporary Western themes with a mix of 75 seasoned artists and new artists fresh to the scene. “We’re looking at contemporary issues of the West,” says Rose Fredrick, curator for the exhibit. “When I say contemporary artists, I mean artists that are living and work is new. They’re looking at new materials, a different thought process and style.”
These new artists are may not even have current gallery representation, but Fredrick finds promise in these rising talents. “They have the dedication and the skill set and their ideas are big, broad and wonderful,” Frederick says. “They bring a voice to the show that we don’t currently have, and I think it’s something people look for in our show every year.”
Although no featured artist was picked this year, there’s still much excitement surrounding talents such as Texas artist David Griffin. His painting Thunderstuck, is a standout piece depicting a vast Western landscape with a big thunderhead lit up by the moon.
Fredrick recalls the beginning of Griffin’s career, where he focused on painting cowboys that were more on the illustration side. “He and I were talking a few years back and I remember telling him, ‘I feel like you’re still trying to make your break...you can experiment and push boundaries with me.’ He needed someone on the selling side of things to tell him ‘I got your back.’” For the event, Griffin came out swinging. “It was all there,” Fredrick says.
Additional excitement surrounds work by new-to-the-scene glass artist Evelyn Gottschall Baker. Her work appears to be simply displayed, bleached animal bones and yet, they’re all made of glass, kiln formed with finishings that she has devised. She then displays them in unique scenarios and on stands, such as in Balance, showing a coyote skull attached to a blue-tinged glass hand.
“Glass is such a fascinating medium that is usually used as decoration and can be easily broken,” Fredrick explains. “[Glass] is also incredibly strong and has this great dichotomy to it—a great word for Baker’s work. She combines the idea of the dichotomy of glass with these old bones—this fragility of things
dying but also this stark whiteness sticking out of nature, looking at the past. The bones go back to the Earth and support new life but they are also strong in other ways.”
The auction will begin December 18 at noon and runs through January 5, ending at 8 p.m., through the free platform Handbid, accessible through the website. Whatever remains will sell on a first-come, first-serve basis through January 24. There will be a short presentation held on January 5 to announce awards and discuss the contributions to the National Western Scholarship Trust.