Western Horizons 2025

Tony Abeyta is a Diné (Navajo) contemporary artist working in mixed media paintings. A graduate of New York University with an honorary doctorate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Tony was the 2012 recipient of the New Mexico Governor’s Excellence in the Arts award, and recognized as a Native treasure by the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.

The youngest of three children, he was born into a distinguished family of Diné artists that includes his late sisters, Pablita and Elizabeth, and his late parents, Narciso and Sylvia Shipley Abeyta. Together, his relatives have excelled in painting, pottery, weaving, and silversmithing. Tony, an artist of international acclaim, works in mediums that include charcoal, oil, acrylic, and silversmithing.

Tony currently works in both Santa Fe, NM and Berkeley, CA. Tony’s work is included in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Boston Fine Arts Museum, Denver art museum, Autry Museum as well as in many other public & private collections.

William Acheff’s art passion was kindled while living in the San Francisco Bay area when, at age 22, artist Roberto Lupetti invited him to his drawing class. After six months, Acheff moved into his own studio while continuing visits to Lupetti’s studio for criticism and words of wisdom.

Restless, Acheff ventured to Taos in 1973. Armed with classical training, he developed a very distinct style that is widely recognized and admired. He is renowned for his highly realistic still lifes of rich Native American artifacts of the past. The Pueblo Indians of Taos have provided him with inspiring subjects to paint. “Artifacts and traditions of the past,” he explains, “seem to hold more mystical and aesthetic value than those of contemporary times.”

Acheff has shown in major Western art shows: Western Heritage Sale, Artists of America, National Academy of Western Art, The Hubbard Show, Prix de West, Autry Masters of the American West. He is a two time Prix de West Award winner (1989, 2004) and received the Masters of America West Purchase Award in 1998.

“It is very rewarding to portray people in my artwork that I truly admire and respect. I am very thankful to live and work in a country that has allowed me the opportunity to pursue my dreams.”

Best known for her western portraits, Carrie L. Ballantyne grew up in southern California and began drawing as a child. Art was always a passion but never pursued as a profession. In her late teens she moved to Wyoming to work on a dude ranch and for big game outfitters. It was during this time she began to realize art as a profession was a real possibility. In 1981 Ballantyne entered her first juried art show, won first place in drawing, and never looked back.

For many decades now, Carrie has been portraying the people around her in the western lifestyle she loves. Young and old, male and female. She works in several mediums; grapite pencil, colored pencil, conte, charcoal, and oil paint. “I strive to paint souls, not just faces.“

Ballantyne’s work has been featured on the covers, and in articles of numerous periodicals, as well as different art books over the years. She has participated in many museum art shows, and her work is also available through The Legacy Gallery. She is the fortunate recipient of several awards as well as museum acquisitions.

But it’s the individual art collectors that she most values – “The ever encouraging, supportive, and generous art collectors have graciously permitted me to pursue my life work, and for that I am forever grateful.”

After a 46 year career of painting wildlife art, Greg Beecham is no less passionate to learn and grow as an artist than he was that first full-time day of painting in the late summer of 1978. He struggled for many years to define his vision and improve his technical skills. Forced to slow down and ponder life and work as he lay in a hospital bed for three days in 2013, he asked himself a simple question, “Who am I?” In other words, “What am I trying to say as an artist and how do I go about saying it?” His conclusion was that he must take the tools of his trade; color, value, texture, edges, drawing and composition and, in his work, strive toward unity in the context of simplicity and beauty. He is also fascinated with creating the illusion of mass, weight and volume on a two-dimensional surface. These ideas have spoken into his quest to create art since then. Beecham considers his life work as an artist to be a journey. There have been a few paintings that have come close to matching his vision. But he continues to press on, hoping to match vision with reality. He believes his talent, opportunity, and passion to paint are gifts from God, and that it is his responsibility to pursue excellence in art and be a blessing to those who view his work. 

Beecham’s work is included in permanent collections of The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK – The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK, The National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY, The James Museum, Tampa, FL, The Briscoe Museum, San Antonio, TX, The Booth Museum, Cartersville, GA, and The Montana Historical Museum, Helena, MT. He is a six-time winner of the Prix de West Wildlife Art Award at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City as well as the Prix de West Buyer’s Choice Award. In the summer of 2021, he was awarded the Prix de West purchase award and feels incredibly honored to have his work represented in that collection. Greg has received the artist’s choice and collector’s choice awards at the Night of Artists Show at the

Briscoe Museum in San Antonio as well as the Red Smith artist choice award at the Western Visions Show, National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY.

Beecham’s work has been covered in numerous magazines such as Southwest Art and Art of the West. His work has graced the covers of the following magazines; Safari Magazine (3 times), Southwest Art (3 times), Western Art Collector (twice), Bugle, Wildlife Art News, Sporting Classics, and U.S. Art. Greg has been married to Lu Beecham for 47 years. They have a son and a daughter, both grown, of whom they are very proud.

After graduating in 1977 from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, 

Thomas Blackshear worked for a year for the Hallmark Card Company in Kansas City, Missouri. While there, he met the famous illustrator Mark English and became his apprentice for several months. By 1980, he was working as head illustrator for Godbold/Richter Studio.

He became a freelance illustrator in 1982 and has been self-employed ever since.

Known for his dramatic lighting and sensitivity to mood, Blackshear has produced illustrations for advertising, books, calendars, collectors’ plates, greeting cards, magazines, postage stamps, and national posters. His clients range from Disney Pictures, George Lucas Studios, and Universal Studios to International Wildlife and National Geographic magazines. He has illustrated thirty United States postage stamps and a commemorative stamp book titled I Have a Dream.

Blackshear has also designed and executed illustrations for four collectors’ plate series. He is known for his best-selling Christian prints produced for DaySpring’s Masterpiece Collection. In 1995 he created Ebony Visions, which has been the number-one-selling black figurine collectible in the United States for the past twenty years. He won Artist of the Year in 1999 for that line from the National Association of Limited Edition Dealers and the prestigious International Collectible Artist of the Year Award in 2001. In 2006, Blackshear had a one-man show through the Vatican in Rome. There he unveiled his painting of Pope John Paul II for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Pope John Paul II Foundation.

Blackshear’s work has appeared in the Society of Illustrators annuals 24, 25, 27, 28, and 30, and in Volume 2 of Outstanding American Illustrators Today. His many awards included Gold and Silver Honors in the 1982 Kansas City Art Directors Club; two Gold Awards and Best of Show in 1986, Best of Show in 1989, and two Gold Awards in the 1990 Illustrators West Shows; a Gold Medal in the 1988 National Society of Illustrators; two Silver Awards in the 1989 San Francisco Society of Illustrators Show; and the Plate of the Year Achievement Award in 1990. His paintings are displayed at the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, Texas, and the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia.

Thomas Blackshear II is represented by Broadmoor Galleries, Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Trailside Galleries, Jackson, Wyoming, and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mark Boedges has, in a short time, amassed numerous awards and showcased his work in many galleries. He attended the University of Kansas, where he received a degree in philosophy. The painting bug, and in particular, painting plein air, took hold of him. He went back to school to study Fine Art at the University of Colorado. Preferring a more traditional approach to painting, Mark left the program after two years to study exclusively from nature. Painting plein air had become his sole focus, and it would remain so for several years. Through this study, his skills quickly developed. His first show was in 2003, and it was a great success, nearly selling out. But all artists need mentoring, and realizing that to further progress, he needed guidance, Mark began to seek out other artists and attend workshops to learn everything he could about his craft, which he continues to do to this day.

Mark has recently received Best in Show at the following shows: American Impressionist Society, Wayne Plein Air, Vermont Plein Air, Door County Plein Air, and Scottsdale Salon of Fine Art. Additional accolades include the Joseph Hartley Memorial Award at the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City, the Bohnert Memorial Award with the Hudson Valley Art Association, the Artistic Excellence Award with Southwest Art magazine, and the Grand Prize for Landscape, as well as a feature article with International Artist magazine.

“While I paint many different kinds of subjects, the landscape is my first and greatest love. Like many artists, I strive to achieve a painterly realism in my work. I do this for a few reasons. As students, we are taught to focus on what is essential in our subject, but this can be a subjective judgment. For me, what is essential about nature is its complexity. Everywhere I look, I see the grittiness, cragginess, and fine-grained texture of the natural world. It is this essential ruggedness and complexity that I try to capture in paint. Experience has taught me that two aspects, more than any other, are crucial in this endeavor. The first is using multiple layers of paint, abstractly and randomly applied, to suggest the depth of nature’s complexity since I could never render this literally or convincingly. The second is to focus on and really capture the ambient light, as this is the source of all the subtle and remarkably beautiful shifts in color and value that give reality its presence and liveliness.” – Mark Boedges

“I didn’t choose art as a career, it chose me” is the answer often given by Tom Browning whenever asked why he decided to become an artist. Tom began drawing horses, wildlife and Indians at age nine, and after five decades of painting and studying the work of Charlie Russell, James Reynolds, and Haddon Sundblom, Browning never tires of finding exciting ways to express this subject matter with the colorful and fluid brushwork that distinguish his place in the Western art market.

In 2009 Tom won the coveted Prix de West award for his painting ‘Dawn of a New Day’. This was responsible for the popularity of his work as he garnered many more invitations and awards from various museum shows throughout the country. He began to concentrate more on the working cowboy and the American West. Later that same year he was elected into the esteemed Cowboy Artists of America. From that point he went on to win numerous awards at many CAA exhibitions and sales as his work became sought after by discerning western art collectors around the country.

Today Browning is best known for his looser style of painting, relying more on implied detail rather than detailed rendering. His attention to light and atmosphere makes his work stand out as he continues to portray cowboys, horses and Native Americans.

Western painter G. Russell Case is inspired by creation, but he places little value on literal translations. His sweeping, idealized versions of the western landscape are compositions that combine the beauty of the created world with the rich imagination and originality of an artist’s mind. While there is an unmistakable honesty present in his painted environments stemming from his engagement with the land painted directly from creation – viewers may be reminded of other great artists of the west, whose work is marked by distinctive artistic philosophies. Case is surely a student of his artistic forebears. The monumental scale of Maynard Dixon, or the unfiltered color and light of  Thomas Moran, both find their way into his visual language. Yet Case’s work is simple, pure, and fresh; his painting draws in the viewer and delivers timeless landscapes. We are immediately transported into a world created by shadow and light, of immense vistas punctuated by jagged mountains and inhabited by lonesome cowboys and native Indians. Today, Russell Case’s work is represented in galleries including Astoria Jackson, WY; Maxwell Alexander Gallery – LA, California; Legacy Gallery Santa Fe, NM; David Ericson Fine Art – Salt Lake City, UT; Bingham Gallery – MT. Carmel, UT. 

Case has also won numerous awards including Best of Show and First Place Oil Painting, Phippen Western Art Show in Prescott, Arizona in 2001; First Place at Southwest Magazine Artist to Watch Show in Steam Boat Springs, Colorado in 2002; Best of Show, People’s Choice, Artist’s Choice, Maynard Dixon Country, Mt. Carmel Junction, Utah in 2003; 2004 brought him the Golden Thunderbird Award for Best of Show at the Maynard Dixon Country exhibition. In 2005 Russell won the Edith Hamlin award at the Maynard Dixon Country and Coors Show featured artist 2010. In 2012 he was awarded Best of Show at the Coors Western Art Exhibition & Sale and in 2014 Artists Choice. Among the national shows Case is in are the Prix de West in Oklahoma City, OK; Coors Western Art Exhibition in Denver, CO; and Maynard Dixon Country in Mt. Carmel, UT.

Case is grateful and humbled for the opportunity of making a living as a landscape painter, giving all glory and praise to God, the author and sustainer of all creation. Russell resides in Brigham City, Utah. He is married to Susanne and they have 3 children: Taylee, Morgan and Cooper. He is also a proud grandpa to 6 grandchildren.

Born and raised amidst the rich cultural tapestry of the American Southwest, Native New Mexican artist S.M. Chavez (Sean Michael Chavez) paints a unique vision bridging tradition and innovation. He melds the old with the new, nodding to historic masters such as the Taos Society of Artists while simultaneously embracing the future of Western art. Primarily known for his depiction of the Vaquero, his soothing sense of color and exceptional design firmly places his work within the best of contemporary western art.

Represented by Santa Fe’s Acosta Strong Fine Art on Canyon Road, he continues to sell out solo shows and participates in several museum exhibitions nationally — venues include The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Albuquerque Museum of Art, The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, The Couse-Sharp Historic Site, The Briscoe Western Art Museum and The Coors Western Art Show, where he was recognized as one of three award recipients in 2024.

Scott L. Christensen is a world-renowned, award-winning artist and educator, based in Teton Valley, Idaho. He is known for his stunning landscapes in both oil and gouache, as well as the emotion he evokes through his art. Scott has been painting and teaching for over 40 years, and his work is highly regarded by both artists and collectors alike. 

Christensen grew up in Lander, Wyoming, a place of extreme geography and wild beauty that has influenced his aesthetic. It was not until college, however, that he would recognize nature as his muse. After a football-related neck injury that left him unable to compete, Christensen sought solace in fly fishing and visiting his grandfather, a wheelchair-bound amateur oil painter. The scent of oils stirred Christensen’s imagination, encouraging him to enroll in art classes. He later earned a degree in art education, and now teaches in person and online through his Adventure of Painting programs. 

Over the years, Christensen has pursued painting with the discipline he once brought to sports. This unique combination of athleticism, scholarly curiosity, and an ardent desire to experience nature has become the alchemy of his success. 

John Coleman truly is a renaissance man in every sense of the word. He spent many years as a very successful businessman before he decided to leave that career behind to pursue his “true passion” in life – fine art.

At the time that John finally made the decision to walk away from his contracting business, he thought about sculpting, despite his focus on portraiture during his teenage years. Interestingly, the very first time that John touched a piece of sculpting clay, he said that he immediately knew he wanted to be a sculptor.  His sculpting style of Native Americans is unique in that he does not simply strive to replicate the visage of the figure that he is sculpting. Because of his scholarly interest in history and mythology his goal, whether with individual pieces or with the pieces within a series, is to always tell a fact-based story to the viewer of his sculptures.

He has achieved numerous awards and accolades. He became a member of the National Sculpture Society in 1999 and a member of Cowboy Artists of America in 2001. A 10-year project the Bodmer – Catlin series gave him many awards and notoriety. This series is in five museums in the United States and Life-size works in numerous museums and public installations.

John felt a need to incorporate paintings into his body of work as an artist. His unique style of oil painting and graphite/charcoal drawings immediately became very popular with collectors. John lives in Arizona with his wife Sue and has two daughters and five grandchildren.

Raised on his family’s cattle ranch in Idaho, Brent’s first lessons in art were taught by his grandmother, a  talented watercolorist.  He grew up sketching the cowboys and horses he observed every day.  In high school an influential instructor encouraged him to pursue a career in art.  Upon graduation, he spent several seasons as a hunting and fishing guide in the vast wilderness of Idaho and Alaska, experiences that led to many painting ideas.  He focused on wildlife art and taught himself woodcarving as a way to express himself.  His specialty became gamefish and songbirds.

After several years of carving and sculpting, Brent decided to concentrate on painting.  He began attending workshops, and over the years has studied with some of the best known names in wildlife and western art.  He was part of a select group of artists to study with world-renowned western artist Howard Terpning at the Cowboy Artists of American workshop in 1997.  He gives Oklahoma artist Christine Verner the most credit for putting him on the path he’s on now. She expanded his vision and under her direction his work turned from highly detailed to a more painterly and looser approach.

He also enjoys “Plein Air” painting and strives to work outdoors as often as he can. “I became a better artist when I began painting from life, it forced me to really observe and train my eyes to filter out the unnecessary stuff and focus on the major elements.” 

Brent’s work has garnered several national awards including the prestigious “Arts for the Parks Top 100” in both 1997 and in 2003, where his painting “Evensong” won both the “People’s Choice” and “Region 3” awards.  Brent was also the very first recipient of the “CM Russell Museum CEO Award” at the annual CM Russell Art Auction in Montana. He was recently invited to participate in the prestigious “Prix de West” Invitational show in Oklahoma City, a lifelong goal for him.  

He is represented by several galleries throughout the country, with work in many private and corporate collections abroad.  Some of his notable collectors include; Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, and Brent Musberger. His work has been the subject of several feature articles in major art and western lifestyle magazines.   He and his wife Jennifer and their two small children live in the beautiful Bitterroot valley of Montana, where the rural lifestyle and wild rivers provide constant inspiration.

Glenn Dean’s childhood interest in art matured into a love of painting landscapes by his early twenties. Exposure to the California and Western landscape painters of the early 1900’s had a great influence on the young artist, and directed the course of his career early on. In the works of such masters as Edgar Payne and Maynard Dixon, Dean saw the “importance of seeing the color of light” while “carefully observing the simple and basic characteristics of a specific location.”

Largely a self-taught Artist, Dean has a passion and joy for discovering answers to the complexities found in the works of those past masters and continues to strive for a similar quality in his own work. In recent years, Dean has turned his attention to the figure within the landscape as he brings the figure closer to the forefront. It is the relationship between the figure and his surroundings which intrigues Dean.

Dean gained recognition early in his career. Dean has won a number of awards including his most recent, the 2018 Henry Farny Award for Best Painting at the Eiteljorg Museum’s Quest for the West Art Show and Sale. In 2017, Glenn won the Artist’s Choice Award at Quest for the West, and in 2016 at Quest for the West, Glenn was the recipient of the Victor Higgins Award of Distinction for the Best Overall Body of Work. Select awards include: the Gold Thunderbird Award (Best of Show) at Maynard Dixon Country; the first ever Emerging Artist Award presented by Art and Antiques Magazine; and the Grand Prize and Artists’ Choice Award at the inaugural Tucson/Sonoran Desert Museum Plein Air Invitational. Dean’s work is included in many National and International collections. His work is included in the permanent collection at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Dean paints on-location throughout the Southwest, dividing his time between deserts, mountains, and coastal subjects. Time in the field and in the studio are equally important to Dean. While working in his studio, Dean is able to paint larger compositions worked from field studies and other references. Dean and his wife, Suzanne, live in his native state of California on the Central Coast.

Born in 1952, C. Michael Dudash was raised in Mankato, Minnesota. His first passion in life was art, followed by an interest in music. After high school and a brief year of college as an art major, he quit school to follow a career as a musician. After six years in the music business, he returned to his art, and briefly attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 1978 he was offered a job as a staff illustrator for the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. and within a year he began winning national awards for his published artwork. After a year, Michael relocated with his wife, Valerie, to the Green Mountains of her native Vermont.

In 1978 he opened his first studio and began his full-time career as a freelance artist and oil painter using agents out of New York City. Over the next 25 years, he developed a highly successful career and national reputation in the field of illustration. His paintings and drawings became highly sought after by publishers, clients and corporations.

While Michael was flourishing as an illustrator, he was also producing a limited number of oil paintings for the gallery and portrait marketplace. In 2002 he left his illustration work behind and became a full-time painter in the fine art world. He quickly found that painting the characters and history of the Old West especially excited him and since 2006 this has been his focus and singular subject matter.  

His work has been featured at Prix De West, Quest for the West, the C. M. Russell Museum Annual Show and Auction, the Buffalo Bill Art Show, the CDA Auction, and the Scottsdale Art Auction. His many awards and honors include the Spirit of the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale Award in 2016; the Quest for the West Patron’s Choice Award in 2015 and the Artist’s Choice Award in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2017 he received the Museum Purchase Award at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.

A true highlight in Michael’s career was the invitation in October of 2016 to become a member of the Cowboy Artists of America. His awards at the Cowboy Artists of America Annual Show include: the Gold Medal for the drawing 2017, Best Oil Painting in 2021 & 2022, and the Ray Swanson Award in 2023. He has been featured in Art of the West, Southwest Art, Western Art Collector and American Artists Magazine. His paintings are displayed at many private and corporate permanent collections, as well as The Booth Museum of Western Art, the Briscoe Western Art Museum and the Pearce Western Art Museum. He was selected by the C. M. Russell Museum to become a member of the Russell Skull Society of Artists in 2014. Over the years Michael has enjoyed success as a lecturer and a teacher through his many oil painting workshops. In 2012 he published a limited-edition book, C. Michael Dudash-Western Collections, showcasing 87 paintings.  Michael is also committed to his guitar/mandolin playing, Christian ministry, and his family. He lives with his wife, Valerie, near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

A third-generation artist, Josh Elliott was born in Great Falls, Montana. His grandfather dabbled in a variety of artistic pursuits, and his father, Steve Elliott, is an accomplished wildlife and landscape painter.

He studied art at the University, then married his wife, Allison. He began outdoor painting throughout Oregon and Montana. Elliott says, “Painting outdoors is a reaction to what is in front of me, where studio painting is more of a reflection of who I am in response to nature.” In the studio, he has more freedom to experiment and focus on what makes a good painting. He believes that if he has an emotional response to a scene, the resulting painting will find an audience.

Elliott cites many artistic influences and paints a variety of subjects within the landscape genre. He is motivated more by ideas than a particular location, “I look for artistic elements like shapes and patterns, value relationships or color combinations. I want there to be reason to start a painting; do I want to make it epic, or poetic, or maybe iconic? My hope is that it is always artistic.”

Elliott’s work resides in several museum collections, including the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia; the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis; the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; and the Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

Selected exhibitions include 21st Century Regionalists: Art of the New West at the Booth Western Art Museum; The Next West: Innovating Tradition at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona; American Masters at the Salmagundi Club in New York City; The West Select at the Phoenix Art Museum; Prix de West at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; and Quest for the West at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis.

Among his many awards, Elliott has received the Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award, the Victor Higgins Award of Distinction, the Artists’ Choice Award, and the Palette Award at Quest for the West; the Edith Hamlin Award at the Maynard Dixon Country Invitational; and the 2D Award at the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. His work has been featured in the magazines American Artist, Art of the West, Southwest Art, and Western Art Collector and in the book Painters of Grand Teton National Park.

Josh lives in Montana with his wife Allison and their two daughters.

Phil Epp was born in York, Nebraska in 1946 and raised in rural Nebraska on a crop/cattle farm. Phil was awarded the Kansas Governors Artist award in 1985. His paintings have been shown at galleries in New Mexico, Chicago and Kansas City and New York. Numerous monumental public works have been awarded honors including “8 wonders of Kansas Art” in 2009 and” Water Tower of the Year” in 2010. 

In 2009, Phil was selected as a U.S. cultural ambassador to Kazakhstan with the Department of States’ “Art in Embassies” program. His work has been displayed in American Embassies in Latvia, Africa and Fiji. In 2010 he received the Best of Show award at the Panhandle Plains Invitational in Canyon, Texas. He recently completed three large paintings for Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. His induction into the Cowboy Artists of America is a monumental yet humbling honor and challenge. His work is in the permanent collection of the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, as well as the Briscoe Museum, Booth Museum and Wichita Art Museum. He has received two “Best of Show” awards and American Hat award at the Cowboy Artists of America annual shows. 

The wide-open spaces and the horses, cowboys, Native Americans and prairie creatures that inhabit this empty landscape have been a lifelong passion. Epp’s studio is based in Kansas, and he continues to travel, photograph and paint the wide open western vistas.

Artist Statement:

“I am strongly imprinted into the open spaces of the Great Plains where I was born and have spent most of my life. My paintings reflect this celebration of open sky and landscape, with a hint of human occupation. My intention is to engage the viewer in this isolation, but not dictate response. I strive to incorporate timeless universal icons into the landscape.”

Martin Grelle began drawing and painting when he was very young and was fortunate to have James Boren and Melvin Warren, two professional artists and members of the prestigious Cowboy Artists of America, move to the area when he was still in high school. Mentored by Boren, he had his first one-man show at a local gallery within a year of graduating from high school. In the years since he has produced some 32 one-man exhibitions, including the very successful one man shows through Legacy Gallery.

Grelle was invited to join the membership of the Cowboy Artists of America in 1995,  fulfilling a dream that began in when he first met Boren and Warren. That same year he was invited to participate in the first Prix de West Invitational at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Since that time, he has won the Prix de West Purchase Award, twice, the Nona Jean Hulsey Rumsey Buyers’ Choice Award, three times, the CA People’s Choice Award in 2002, the CA Ray Swanson Award in 2008, the CA Buyers’ Choice Award in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2018, and the Silver Award for Water Solubles in 2012 and 2014. In addition, he was awarded the Silver Award for Oil in 2017, the Gold Award for Drawing in 2018, and the Silver Award for Mixed Media in 2019, and the Gold Award for oil painting in 2023. He was awarded the Legacy Award by The Briscoe Museum in 2012 for his impact on western art and was presented the Spirit of the West Award by the San Dimas Festival of Arts in April of 2016, and the Artist of Excellence Award by the Booth Museum in Georgia in 2020. He was awarded the Sam Houston Best Painting Award at the Briscoe Museum’s Night of Artist Exhibition in 2020. In May of 2021, Grelle was acknowledged for his Artistic contributions to the state of Texas by the state Senate.

Grelle has served on the board of directors for the CA organization, serving as President for 2014 and 2018, and as Chairman of CAA 50th Anniversary Events during 2015. He was the co-volume editor of The Sons of Charlie Russell book released in 2015 to celebrate the CAA’s 50th year. He is involved with The Joe Beeler Foundation, founded by the Cowboy Artists of America to coincide with their mentoring program, which provides scholarship opportunities for artists and has served on the Board of Directors for the past several years and as President during 2014-2015 and 2018-2019.

Martin Grelle has a real sense of responsibility to his collectors, which fills his heart every morning when he walks into the studio believing that what he does is a gift entrusted to him from God and must be developed and improved upon. Grelle strives to pass on what others have passed to him. He lives in Texas with his wife Joyce on small ranch.  He also has two sons, Josh and Jordan and several grandchildren.

William Haskell stands as a visionary in modern Southwest art, masterfully capturing the region’s essence through a contemporary lens. His work transcends traditional representations, infusing landscapes and cultural elements with a fresh, dynamic energy. Haskell’s use of bold color palettes and innovative compositions breathes life into the arid deserts, towering mesas, and historic adobe structures, portraying them with a vibrancy that speaks to both their timeless beauty and modern relevance. Each piece resonates with an emotional depth that reflects the region’s enduring spirit and Haskell’s unique artistic perspective, making him a true pioneer in the evolution of Southwest art.

Quang Ho was born in 1963 in Hue, Vietnam. He Immigrated to the United States in 1975, and is now a U.S. Citizen. His artistic interest began at the early age of three, and continued through grade school, high school, art school and led him to a very exciting and successful painting profession. In 1980, at the age of 16, Quang held his first one-man-show at Tomorrows Masters Gallery in Denver Colorado. The exhibit was a smashing success for the high school sophomore. 

In 1982, Quang’s mother was killed in a tragic auto accident, leaving him the responsibility of raising four younger brothers and a six year old sister. That same year, Quang attended the Colorado Institute of Art on a National Scholastics Art Awards Scholarship. At CIA, Quang studied painting under Rene Bruhin, whom Quang credits with developing the foundation for his artistic understanding. Ho graduated from CIA in 1985 with Best Portfolio Award for the graduating class. 

An art dealer, Mikkel Saks, discovered his talent and promoted him in his gallery, which led to much success. He also teaches at the Denver Art Students League. Ho’s clients include Adolph Coors Company; Upjohn, Safeway, Colorado Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony. Ho’s illustration works have been featured in the Illustrators Annual and exhibited at the Museum of American Illustrations; and the Communication Arts Illustrations Annual during those years. 

Working mostly in oils and occasionally watercolor and pastels, Ho’s subject matter ranges from still-life, landscapes, interiors, and dancers, to figuratives. “Subject matter is not really important to me. I can find visual excitement all around me as well as on the canvas – from a knot on a tree, graceful limp of a flower wilting, to a juxtaposition of a few simple shapes and colors… inspirations are inexhaustible.” 

Quang Ho is a member of the Prix de West Show at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Jerry Jordan is a modern impressionist painter who is continually inspired by the work of the Taos Society of artists including Victor Higgins and Ernest Blumenschein.  Much like the Taos founders before him, Jordan was haunted by the artistic appeal of Northern New Mexico which includes stunning landscapes, unique architecture and an appreciation of Native culture.  Taos became his permanent home and it is his constant muse.

When people first experience a Jordan painting, they are immediately  transported to another time.  They often wonder aloud if the work is historic or contemporary.  Since Jerry is a colorist, the biggest overall reaction from the viewer is in response to his well thought out palette, each visible stroke a mix of colors that summons the viewer to take a longer and closer look.

There is a spiritualism about Jerry’s work that is captured in his renderings of pueblo life and of the landscape that serves as a backdrop for modern and historic life in Taos.  Each painting signed with an acronym of Taos: Together. Always. Our. Spirit.

Born in China and raised in a family of artists, Z.S. Liang began his training at an early age  at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Like many of his contemporaries,

Liang studied realism where he had the opportunity to study the work of 19th and 20th century Russian masters. With the end of the Cultural Revolution, came the opportunity many promising Chinese artists yearned for; access to western books and magazines and the ability to travel abroad and experience western culture.

It was on the east coast of the United States that Liang was first inspired to paint Native American cultures. His passion for the Native Americans as a people coupled with a keen sense of historical accuracy, storytelling abilities and exceptional drawing skills, add strength and truth to his dynamic portrayals. During the ensuing years of field research, he has made many connections and friends among native tribes from the east coast to the west coast.

Today, Liang’s penchant for detail combined with the historical and narrative elements of his paintings have firmly established him among the ranks of the finest western, representational painters in the country. In each painting, whether a complex subject matter, his meticulous research and dedication is clear, giving his work passion and authenticity.

He is a member of the American Society of Portrait Artists; and the Prix de West from National Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. His public collections include, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, DC; Autry National Center, Los Angeles, CA; West Point Museum of The United States Military Academy, West Point, NY; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA., James Museum in St. Petersburg, FL.

In a remarkably short period of time, Jeremy Lipking has emerged as one of the country’s premier realist artists. His talent, which rivals that of the late nineteenth century painterly realists such as John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla and Anders Zorn, is outstanding for a painter of any age. Like these great painters of the past, Lipking is a virtuoso artist. His canvases convey the magical aura of convincing imagery emerging out of a field of paint.

Realism has been misunderstood through most of the twentieth century as an art of imitation. In truth, when practiced by a painter like Jeremy Lipking, realist painting is a powerful creative force. Many viewers are drawn to his art thinking that it looks just like a photograph. Actually Lipking’s vision is the opposite of what a camera does. A photograph tends to flatten an image, reducing all relationships of color and shade to a stiff mechanical pattern. Lipking’s skill lies in his ability to probe in and around his subject. With a highly sensitive eye, he sees nuances of value and hue that the camera and most people can never see. More incredibly, he is able to translate his highly nuanced vision into a painted image. Lipking’s true subject is his pictorial fluency. Seeing one of his paintings involves entering into the pictorial world he has created. Like all great realists, he has the ability to generate powerful fictions.

I have had the pleasure to watch Lipking paint on a number of occasions. The experience is both exhilarating and baffling. Lipking begins his paintings in a surprisingly loose, painterly manner-something I never would have expected. He makes initial marks to find the scale and proportions of his subject. Then he applies a broad underpainting of color to capture the desired hue and value. At this stage his paintings look almost abstract, consisting of a pattern of large color shapes. 

Lipking’s characteristic brushwork or gesture is what I like to call the “open touch.” What I mean by this phrase is that Lipking applies paint in broad, loose facets, often leaving areas of bare canvas in between. In subsequent additions the open areas are gradually filled in, creating a breathing lattice-like structure of paint. In a curious way, the method is somewhat like Cezanne’s manner. But whereas Cezanne emphasized the discontinuity of his touches, Lipking works with close values, so that the result is a seamless veil of color.

The magic occurs in the finish. As he progresses, he gradually refines each area, adjusting relationships of color and adding deft touches to define select elements. He brings certain forms to a razor sharp level of finish. Other passages are left vague and undefined. In this interplay of sharp and loose, the painting literally opens up and breathes. This is what makes his art seem so lifelike. Instead of resting as static images, his canvases pulse with the subtle energy of a living thing.

Michael Zakian, Ph.D.

Director

Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art

Pepperdine University

Jeremy lives with his family in the Santa Monica Mountains just outside of Los Angeles. He is an enrolled member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians.

As far back as Huihan Liu remembers, he has loved to draw and sketch. As a child, Liu’s father taught him to write a Chinese calligraphy with a brush and link on rice paper, thus encouraging his interest in art.

Liu was trained in the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in China, and then received bachelor’s (1972) and master’s (1989) degrees from the Academy of Art College of San Francisco. Today, with more than 40 years of experience as illustrator and teacher, he is also a master signature member of the Oil Painters of America, a master signature member of American Impressionist Society and a signature member of the California Art Club.

Liu has received numerous awards such: as Best of Show Award in the Oil Painters of America Regional Exhibition in 1996, “Gold Medal for Best painting” in California Art Club’s 92nd Annual Juried Exhibition in 2003, “Best of Show in Painting-John Scott people’s Choice Award” in Western Rendezvous of Art in 2003, Gold Medal for the Master Signature Division at the Oil painters of America Western Regional Show, First Place winner in Bowers Museum Contemporary Plein Air Permanent Collection in 2003, First Place Winner in Ninth Annual Mission San Juan Capistrano Plein Air Painting Event- Wilmington Trust Purchase Collection, Brinton Museum Purchase Awards Permanent Collection, 13th ARC Salon Finalists. 29th OPA National Juried Exhibition for the Shirl Smithson Foundation’ Award in 2020, Prix de West Frederic Remington Painting Award in 2022 and Recipient of the Robert Lougheed Award at Prix de West, 2023.

Liu has also been featured in such publications as Art of the West, The Artist, Southwest, International Artists magazine.

Terri Kelly Moyers has never wanted to do anything in life but paint. Even as a child growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, she was constantly drawing with her main subject matter being horses. She briefly studied at the Alberta College of Art and also the Mount Royal Community College, but the stylistic emphasis in these two institutions was not of the realist, nature-based school that interested Terri. She continued working independently until she attended a month-long painting workshop taught by the artist, Robert Lougheed, at the Okanagan Game Farm in British Columbia. It was there that she began in earnest painting animals from life as well as rubbing shoulders with and getting advice from artists from all over America. One of those artists receiving instruction from Lougheed was her future husband, John Moyers, of New Mexico.

Whether painting a portrait, a landscape or a cowgirl riding a horse, Moyer’s subjects are things that are beautiful and that move her. Her favorite subject is the American cowgirl. “I enjoy painting women,” she says. “I feel women had a major role to play in the West, and maybe that hasn’t been recognized as much as it could be.”

Terri Moyers exhibits annually at the Prix de West Show at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, OK, the Masters of the American West Show at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, in Los Angeles, CA, and Quest for the West held at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, IN. She lives in California with her artist husband, John Moyers. Terri paints in her studio and en plein air while traveling abroad which is another passion of hers.

John Moyers grew up in an artistic environment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His father, sculptor and painter William Moyers, was his first role model. As a child, Moyers displayed a natural affinity for art, and during his early years—surrounded by paintings and sculptures—he was able to experiment with clay, charcoal, India ink, and watercolors. Eventually he moved on to acrylic and oils. 

After graduating from high school in New Mexico, Moyers was invited to live in the Laguna Beach area with one of his father’s former art teachers, John Noel Tucker. Tucker was a talented teacher and painter, and he really opened Moyers’s eyes to the world of art. He also took advantage of daily critique from Tucker. During that same period, he attended classes at Laguna Beach School of Art and Saddleback Junior College; wherever he could find life drawing and figure painting classes. In 1978, Moyers started taking his plein air work to Robert Lougheed for critique but only when he returned home to New Mexico from art school during breaks. In 1979, Lougheed invited him to paint along with several other artists at the Okanagan Game Farm in British Columbia, Canada. Moyers then decided to leave art school and return to New Mexico, where he could spend a dedicated amount of time studying and painting alongside Lougheed year-round

In 1982, Moyers married fellow artist Terri Kelly Moyers, whom he originally met at the artist gathering at the Okanagan Game Farm. They live in California where he and Terri continue to paint en plein air as much as possible. Moyers loves to paint in Hawaii, a place that has captivated his interest since his youth. Together, the couple has traveled and painted all over the world. Both artists consider their outdoor work critical to their studio work. 

During Moyers’s 40-year career, he has won numerous awards, some of them considered the most prestigious in the Western art world. In 2003, he received the Robert Lougheed Memorial Award at the Prix de West. A seven-time winner of the Cowboy Artists of America’s (CAA) Kieckhefer Award (Best of Show), he also received numerous Gold and Silver Awards in oil and water-soluble media at their annual exhibition and sale. In 2017 he won the James R. Parks Trustees’ Purchase Award for The Elders’ Walk at the Masters of the American West, and the Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award for The Way to Sacred Water at the Quest for the West. His work is in many other museum and private collections throughout the world, and has been featured in such publications as Art of the West, Southwest Art, Western Art & Architecture, and Western Art Collector. In 2021, he won the Director’s Choice for Excellence for Vanguard of the Northern Plains at the Prix de West. Most recently Moyers received the Gayle Roski – Stories of the West Award at the 2022 Masters of the American West.

Robert Peters is a landscape and still-life painter with a career spanning more than forty years. He has participated in museum exhibitions such as the Prix de West, Quest for the West, Masters of the American West, Night of Artists, and The West Select. Robert’s paintings have earned great acclaim, and several museums have included his paintings as part of their permanent collections. His work has steadily earned him acceptance and recognition as one of America’s notable landscape painters.

At the start of his career, Robert worked for twelve years as a freelance illustrator represented in New York City. As a member of the Society of Illustrators, his award-winning paintings were featured on the covers of magazines such as US News and World Report. Robert created paintings for the national advertising campaigns of corporations such as AT&T, 7UP, MasterCard, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Audi, Canon, Motorola, Revlon, TV Guide, and others. Robert’s illustration experience gave him a solid foundation for his current work. Born in upstate New York and raised in Phoenix, Arizona Robert credits his early memories of the Southwestern deserts with sparking a passion for the outdoors. His extensive travels throughout the American West instilled a love for nature. Enthusiasm and respect for the natural world continue to be the driving forces behind his landscape paintings. “The western landscape is an endless source of inspiration to me,” Robert says. “I draw strictly from my own observations, which imparts an authentic and natural quality to my paintings. If something is in one of my paintings, I’ve been there and I’ve experienced it.” He also finds the technical challenges of his art to be motivating and rewarding. “One of the most energizing things about painting is improving the quality of what you do. I believe there is no limit to how far you can take your ability. Over the years, I’ve also realized it’s important for me to share my personal vision of the West with others. It’s a thrill when my paintings resonate with the viewer on a personal level.”

Robert’s life in the West also included some time in Colorado and the central coast of California, where he and his wife, Nanette, raised and showed paint horses. The couple and their two children have since moved back home to Arizona, near Prescott, where they reside today.

Publications featuring Robert’s paintings have included Art of the West, Cowboys and Indians, Fine Art Connoisseur, Persimmon Hill, Southwest Art, Western Art Collector, Western Horseman, and Wildlife Art.

Kyle Polzin grew up in South Texas, and began developing his artistic skills at a young age under the guidance of his father. Brought up around horses and the Gulf coast, Kyle grew to appreciate the beauty and heritage of his Texas surroundings which is reflected in his art. He worked closely with his grandfathers who were both skilled carpenters, and through their teachings, learned the value of craftsmanship and the reward of creating with your hands.

In 1992 Kyle began his formal training in fine art at Victoria College with emphasis in oil painting. During this time, he participated in instructional sessions under Dalhart Windberg, whose work has influenced him since boyhood. After college Kyle worked as a graphic artist and web designer while painting in his free time. As his popularity and success as a painter grew, he switched to painting full time in 2000.

Kyle received the Express Ranches Great American Cowboy Award at the 2013 Prix de West in Oklahoma City, and the Don B. Huntley Spirit of the West Award, given in recognition of the most outstanding work in cowboy subject matter for two years in a row at the Autry National Center’s Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale. He has had numerous sold out shows and his work has been featured in Art of the West, Southwest Art, Western Art Collector, Texas Outdoors Journal, and numerous other publications. He currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Leigh along with their two young daughters.

Born in Alabama in 1972, Scott Tallman Powers has dedicated his life to the world of art, drawing inspiration from a diverse range of experiences and cultures. His artistic journey began early, influenced by his father, a professional illustrator and fine artist. After completing four years of study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Scott embarked on a career as an illustrator at a local advertising agency. However, his true passion lay in fine art, and he eventually pursued his lifelong dream.

One notable aspect of Scott’s artistic approach is his connection to ranching culture. He immerses himself in the life of ranches to gather subject matter for his paintings, allowing him to honor this rich heritage through his artwork.

In addition to his exploration of ranching culture, Scott’s quest for inspiration takes him around the world, where he seeks out new cultures and experiences. His goal is to discover people’s stories and convey them with honesty and integrity through his art. This passion has grown steadily, one day and one mile at a time.

Scott’s dedication to his craft has earned him recognition and a prominent place in the art world. His work graces the walls of esteemed institutions like the Wengyuan Museum of Fine Art and the Shaoguan Museum of Fine Art in China, as well as The Academy Museum in Easton, Maryland. His paintings also adorn the homes and offices of collectors across the United States.

Scott’s artistic achievements include winning numerous prizes, including medals at the Oil Painters of America exhibitions and the Eiteljorg Museum. He has had the privilege of participating in museum shows in China, Israel, and Europe, further solidifying his international reputation. His work has been featured in renowned publications such as American Artist, Western Art and Architecture, Southwest Art, The American Artist “Workshop” magazine, Art of the West, and Western Art Collector.

Currently residing in Butte, Montana, Scott Tallman Powers is represented by Settlers West Gallery in Tucson, Arizona, and Illume Gallery West, in Philipsburg, Montana.

Grant Redden was born and raised in southwest Wyoming.  His parents were of pioneer ancestry, and he grew up on a sheep and cattle ranch.  He paints what he lives everyday. The land, livestock, and people of the west are naturally his subjects and provide an abundant source of inspiration for his paintings.

Primarily self-taught, Grant has immersed himself in the study of the masters, both deceased and living, in an on-going effort to “get better” at his craft.  

He was inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America in 2012 and has since won six gold medals and two silver medals for oil painting, a silver for watercolor painting, and three times selected for Best Body of Work in the annual Cowboy Artists of America show.

Grant has been featured in articles from Western Art and Architecture, Southwest Art, Art of the West, Western Art Collector, and others.  He has participated in various museum shows including a two-man exhibit at the Booth Museum of Art in Cartersville, Georgia, and a group show at the Woolaroc Museum in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  He has exhibited at the

Autry Show in Los Angeles and at the Prix de West in Oklahoma City. 

Grant lives in Hilliard, Wyoming with his wife Annette, a dog, some chickens, two old horses, and a pack of coyotes.

Jason Rich grew up riding, training and drawing horses on a small farm in southern Idaho. Jason’s interest in art was fostered at a young age, which led him to study art at Utah State University where he received Bachelor and Master of Fine Art degrees. Upon completing his education, Jason dedicated himself to pursuing art full time and quickly established himself in the art market.

Over more than three decades, Jason has enjoyed much success and awards, first starting in ’97 with the Grand Prize for Arts of the Park award. He is featured at National Shows such as the Prix de West in Oklahoma, the Masters at the Autry Museum, and most notably as a member and past President of the Cowboy Artists of America. His most recent awards are the Stetson Award, Best Overall at the Cowboy Artists of America in 2015, and Western Artist of the Year at the Academy of Western Artists in 2014.

Jason lives in the mountains of northern Utah with his wife and three grown children. He feels he is living his dream, riding alongside cowboys working the cattle or packing through the mountains, keeping his paintings authentic to his way of life.

David Scott Rogers, a sculptor with thirty-three years of experience, has a rich history intertwined with art. His Great Grandfather, John Rogers, was a martyr burned at the stake in 1555 for translating and printing one of the first English Bibles. Relatives Thomas Rogers and Samuel Fuller signed the Mayflower Compact in 1620, and his great-great-grandfather, Henry Clay Rogers, settled Lehi, Arizona, in 1877. Born in Mesa, Arizona, Scott’s uncle, Grant Speed, was a renowned artist in western art.

Quotes about Scott’s work highlight its unique qualities, such as sculpting on the edge, perfection in chaos, and a presence that transcends the physical confines of the sculpture. Scott aims to create art that serves as an instant conduit to knowledge, anatomy, feelings, history, and tradition. His goal is to lift spirits, inspire positivity, and encourage viewers to actively engage with the portrayed events or times.

Scott’s youth experiences, from saving a drowning boy at twelve to winning a Golden Gloves boxing championship at sixteen, contribute to the authenticity of his sculptures. These diverse experiences, including camping in snow, participating in rodeos, and working in an Alaskan gold mine, shape the emotional fingerprints evident in his artwork.

In Scott’s own words, his lifelong fascination with renegades, outlaws, and stories of courage and freedom fuels his desire to use art as a means to inspire others to appreciate the beauty of life in all its forms.

“My desire is to use art as a vehicle which inspires mankind to see the beauty of all life. A great work of art lifts the spirit! It can assist one to reach out for the ‘good’ in life. Art is able to inspire one to feel better about themselves and their fellowmen. Sculpture can be an instant conduit to a rich body of knowledge (i.e. anatomy, feelings, history and lore)”. For me, “It is in sculpting my feelings that allows me to make a piece feel larger than the confines of the piece itself.” – David Scott Rogers

One of the originators of the Western pop art movement, Billy Schenck incorporate techniques from photorealism with a pop art sensibility to both exalt and poke fun at images of the West. Schenck is known for utilizing cinematic imagery reproduced in a flattened, reductive style, where colors are displayed side-by-side rather than blended or shadowed. In the August 2014 issue of Southwest Art magazine, his work was described as “a stance … a pendulum between the romantic and the irreverent.”

Schenck’s artwork is now in 60 museum collections, including Smithsonian Institution, Albuquerque Museum, Autry Museum of the American West, Booth Western Art Museum, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, the Mesa Southwest Museum, Museum of the Southwest, New Mexico Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Tucson Museum of Art. Private collections include the estate of Malcolm Forbes, Laurence Rockefeller, Sylvester Stallone and the estate of Fritz Scholder. Corporate collections include American Airlines, IBM, Sony, and Saatchi & Saatchi.

With over 120 solo shows in the U.S. and Europe, career highlights include the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s 2018, Andy Warhol Cowboys and Indians and Billy Schenck Myth of the West retrospective, 2023 Museum of the West, Mystic Visions of the West, Denver Art Museum’s 2011 Western Horizons and the 2013 Utah Museum of Fine Art’s exhibit Bierstadt to Warhol:American Indians in the West.

A genuine cowboy himself, Schenck is a ranch-sorting world champion and the proprietor of the Double Standard Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his home for the past two decades.

Matt Smith was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1960.  At an early age he moved to Arizona where he developed his life long connection to the Sonoran Desert and the great outdoors. This was a connection that would eventually influence his decision to paint the landscape. As a teenager he also lived two years in France and one year in Switzerland. While in Europe, he had the opportunity to visit many of the great museums which helped solidify his love for art. 

In 1985, Smith earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Arizona State University. Somewhat frustrated with the abstract focus of the program at ASU he began looking to outside sources for inspiration and guidance. These sources included fellow artists, fine galleries and museums. This is where his “real” education began.

These days, Matt can often be found painting en Plein air from southern Arizona to the Canadian Rockies, from the California coast to the Rocky Mountains. “I appreciate traditional landscape painting and I am inspired by the pristine landscapes of the American West.  I enjoy working in areas where one can travel for miles without seeing the influence of man.  When I paint, I feel I’ve hit the mark when I’ve captured a balance between mood, look and feel.    

Smith currently lives in Arizona.

Morgan Weistling is nationally recognized as one of America’s top contemporary painters today.  A successful illustrator in the Hollywood movie industry for fourteen years, Weistling made a transition to the world of fine art in 1998 as he turned his attention to painting his love for the American frontier spirit. His earliest influence was his artist father on whose lap Morgan sat and sketched at just nineteen months of age. At the age of 15, he began his serious art training in the Los Angeles area at Brandes Art Institute, run by Fred Fixler. Under Fixler’s tutelage, Weistling learned to paint in the traditions of the Golden Age of Illustration.

Weistling was recruited out of art school by the top advertising agency in Hollywood, Bacon Reneric Design, at the age of 19. For 14 years he created movie posters with every major studio in the entertainment business. Morgan thrived under the challenges presented to him in the highly stressed poster industry but was looking forward to a time when he could stretch himself more artistically. 

After leaving illustration, Morgan soon became known nationally for his exquisite oil paintings that showcase his well honed drawing ability and his skilled control over values, edges and light.  He captures the mood and atmosphere of the past and his attention to the historical aspects of his subjects comes from his desire to portray the truth and beauty of America’s pioneering spirit with a cinematic eye. Each of the paintings in this show reveals his desire to put the viewer in the scene as a witness to the event. His paintings have a deep sense of history to them due to his research and authentic costumes that he has specially made for him. He is inspired by his vast collection of artifacts and period saddles as well as his collaboration with top Old West historian and actor, Peter Sherayko. 

Morgan notes, “In my paintings, I hope to communicate with the viewer the same emotional response that I felt and was inspired by. There has to be something visually stunning in the scene that causes me to want to capture that.  Sometimes it is the personality of my model and a particular pose that just begs to be painted. Other times it’s just the way a particular edge stands out among the softer ones around it. Whatever it is, I know it must come from my heart or I won’t stay interested nor will the viewer.” 

Weistling’s paintings have won multiple awards and been purchased for permanent display by major museums. He is still the youngest to ever win the coveted Prix de West Award at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. He also went on to win it a second time in 2008. 

Also interested in depicting his Christian faith, Morgan has portrayed the life of Christ in many of his paintings. Four years ago he took over the honored position that was held by G. Harvey with Focus on the Family as their official annual print artist. A retrospective book titled A Brush with History chronicled his vast body of work and sold out at first printing. 

Morgan and his wife, JoAnn, have been married since 1990 and  have two daughters, Brittany and Sienna.  JoAnn is represented by Joanne Watson Fine Art and Trailside Galleries and paints under the name “JoAnn Peralta”.  She will be exhibiting in the highly anticipated show “America Narratives in Fine Art”, in Texas in 2024.

Kim Douglas Wiggins is a modernist painter from New Mexico.  His distinct style and modern vision have made him one of the most recognizable artists in America today.  Wiggins grew up on a ranch in southern New Mexico along the Pecos River Valley.  At the age of twelve, an art dealer visiting his parent’s ranch discovered his budding talent and began marketing his work in Scottsdale, Arizona.  By the mid 1970’s, he was painting in oil and working as a graphic artist for a national equine magazine. During the 1980’s he experimented with various forms of Impressionism and Modernism eventually leading to his distinctive style.  Although primarily self-taught, he was mentored early on by the iconic artists Alexandre Hogue and Henriette Wyeth.  By 1983 he was the youngest member of the Society of American Impressionists (SAI), exhibiting alongside George Carlson, Everett Raymond Kinstler, and Sandy Scott.  Today, Wiggins is recognized as one of the creative forerunners behind the current Modern West Movement.  His uniquely modern vision of the West often places his work alongside celebrated icons of Western Realism as a powerfully, contrasting voice of creative vision.  

Wiggins has exhibited with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Prix de West; Autry Museum of the American West’s Masters of the American West; Briscoe Western Art Museum; Booth Western Art Museum; Denver Art Museum; National Museum of Wildlife Art; C. M. Russell Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Museum of New Mexico; De Young Museum; National Society of American Impressionists, and the Other Side of the West. 

Wiggins is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who in the World. The Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles houses two of Wiggins’ major works.  Other collections include the Briscoe Western Art Museum, Museum of New Mexico, American Museum of Western Art, The Anschutz Collection, Booth Western Art Museum, Roswell Museum & Art Center and Tulane University.  The Staples Center in Los Angeles (Crypto.com Arena) houses a collection of nine major historical works, and one mural focused on the history of California.  This collection has been used as the backdrop for many backstage interviews including the Grammy Awards.  Wiggins work has appeared or dawned the cover of such publications as Western Art Collector, Southwest Art, Art of the West, Architectural Digest, American Psychologist, Cowboy & Indians, Wildlife Art, Western Art & Architecture, International Artist, and Elle Decor.  Book covers include Peace and Friendship, An Alternative History of the West, by Stephen Aron, Oxford University Press, 2022; American Indians of the U.S. From A to Z, An Overview of Major Tribes, Historical Figures, and Events, by B. Clay Shannon, Across Time and Space, 2017; The monograph on the artist’s work, Kim Wiggins Artist of the Modern West, by Jerry D. Holm, Pintores Press, 2019. Wiggins was recently honored by the NAACP with an extensive commission documenting various aspects of Black History.  These four major historical works were unveiled on June 17th, 2023, at the Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH.

Jeremy Winborg is a contemporary American artist known for his unique juxtaposition of realism and abstract art, focusing primarily on Native American subjects. Winborg’s artistry is rooted in his appreciation for the beauty and heritage of the west, a passion that has shaped his work throughout his career. Winborg has had an interest in art from a young age, a passion encouraged by his father, a professional artist himself. This early exposure to the art world laid the foundation for his artistic journey. Jeremy’s paintings capture the essence of his subjects with a profound depth and emotion. He often portrays Native American individuals and

each piece tells a story, inviting viewers to delve into the history and traditions portrayed in each painting. Winborg’s artworks are featured in collections and galleries across the world. He has participated in prestigious art shows and exhibitions, earning awards and recognition that underscore his talent and contribution to contemporary art. His paintings are a bridge between past and present, offering insights into the enduring spirit and beauty of Native American cultures. Jeremy and his family call Utah home. He paints side by side with his dad and children who have now also found the joy of expressing themselves through visual arts.