Posts from ‘wildlife’
Robert Kuhn, Flat Out, 1985. Acrylic on Board. 14 x 18 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Talk about a party! Here in Jackson, we’re proud to know our cultural treasure, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
“From a private collector’s dream and a rented Jackson Hole storefront to a landmark building, national museum designation, and more than 5,000 artworks boasting familiar names from Audubon to Warhol, the National Museum of Wildlife Art has come a long way in 25 years,” says the museum. “In addition to its quarter-century anniversary, 2012 also marks the fall completion of the museum’s new Walter Hood-designed Sculpture Trail and the spearheading of a national exhibition providing a visual record of the American West as seen through the eyes of National Geographic’s legendary photographers opening in October.”
The museum’s collection began inauspiciously in 1962 with a small painting titled “Favorite Panfish” by Les Kouba given to Bill Kerr by his wife, Joffa. Two years later the couple bought a Carl Rungius piece, “Wanderers Above Timberline” on layaway, and by 1987 they had amassed one of the finest collections of wildlife and sporting art in the country. Together with several others, on May 17, 1987, they opened the then “Wildlife of the American West Art Museum” in a 5,000-square-foot space on Jackson’s Town Square.
The Grand Teton Association Presents the 2012 “Artists in the Environment” Plein Air Summer Series Schedule, Grand Teton National Park
Gregory I. McHuron
Date: June 9, 2012
Location: Blacktail Pond
Time: 4:00 – 7:00 pm
Gregory I. McHuron has been painting wildlife and landscapes throughout the United States and Canada for 35 years. A Syracuse native, he was raised in Colorado, Wyoming, Alaska and California.
McHuron has long painted Jackson’s surrounding area and the West, capturing a wide variety of subjects. He is active in many arts organizations, including the Wyoming Artists Association, Wind River Artist Association, Scottsdale School of the Arts and The Lodge at Palisades. His paintings are featured at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the CM Russell Show. Grand Teton National Park, Isle Royale National Park, and Gates of the Artic National Park and Preserve include McHuron’s work in their permanent collections.
“People have said that they are immediately struck by my strong sense of design–then, the interesting color combinations, juxtapositions, and light and dark patterns,” says McHuron. “The common thread in all my work is that I was there.” McHuron often puts himself in extreme conditions in order to get the painting he wants. Standing in rivers and on the edge of cliffs, bobbing in a raft down the Grand Canyon, or accidentally finding himself in the middle of a buffalo stampede aren’t unusual circumstances.
McHuron co-founded “Artists in the Environment” with landscape artist Conrad Schwiering. He is represented by Jackson’s Trailside Galleries.
Chicago, Chicago—-That city plans to bump up its international arts scene by repeating its successful “Gallery Weekend Chicago” this fall. The event is a compact arts festival, targeted to attract the nation’s highest end art collectors and curators to the city, and expose them in a very pointed way to the best of Chicago’s trending art. Here’s what “Gallery Weekend Chicago” is all about…..
A dozen of Chicago’s best contemporary art galleries participate. Visiting curators and collectors are chauffered to each of the galleries and museums for private tours; tours are led by Chicago’s own curators and arts specialists–arts historians, I would hope, and museum directors. Reservations at the city’s finest restaurants are secured, special menus planned. Private VIP parties happen. Chicago’s own prominent collectors help guide the process, mingle with the weekend’s guests, and sing the praises of local arts.
Chicago throws in a private boat tour. Jackson Hole’s version might arrange a series of educational expeditions into Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park, and other regions. Jackson Hole’s exclusive dude ranches and collectors could open their doors. Eco-tours, river floats…you get the picture. Chicago has an official hotel for their event; we have so many great lodges that we might be able to rotate them annually. And why stop here? Let’s reach out to our friends in Cody~~~the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, Simpson-Gallagher Gallery and other arts specialists would be partners. Schedule artists’ studio tours, arrange pack trips. Dubois is pretty cool!
Through February 25th, noted plein air painter Scott L. Christensen is offering to critique other artists’ work. He’s doing so for the benefit of Friends of the Teton River; critiques are $50 each, and all proceeds benefit the conservation non-profit. Artists may present up to ten paintings for review.
“Friends” executive director Adonia Ripple notes it is a great honor to have Christensen dedicating work to the organization. “As an angler, Scott understands the value of protecting the Teton River watershed, and the FTR mission of clean water, healthy streams, and abundant fisheries,” says Ripple. “As an artist, there is also support for conservation of wild things, simply because of their aesthetic value. Sometimes we protect things because of their singular beauty. A rare fish species, a perfectly aging cottonwood forest along the river, the sing of water over river cobbles in the spring. With each brush stroke over his landscapes, he is saying, ‘I value this, and this, and this part of this bit of light.’ That is also what we are doing here at FTR; there is the science behind what we are protecting, but there is also the soul.”
For his part, Christensen says working to protect healthy streams, clear water and abundant fisheries in the Teton River is an honor in itself. To find out more about arranging a critique, contact Debbie at Christensen’s studios by phoning 307.787.5851.
Trio Fine Art’s next group exhibition, Flight, opens at the gallery on Thursday, December 8, 2011. An opening reception takes place 5-8:00 pm, and a percentage of all sales benefit the Teton Raptor Center, and Center director Roger Smith promises to bring along a raptor resident.
It’s the Trio artists’ affinity for birds that inspired the show. Trio’s four artists —Jennifer L. Hoffman, Lee Carlman Riddell, Kathryn Mapes Turner and September Vhay—all have lofty aspirations and feelings for good things that take wing.
“My love of birds,” says Riddell, “came from my parents. Dad planted the flowers that attracted the birds to our yard, and Mom taught me to recognize the bird’s songs.
Recently a Calliope hummingbird nested outside my studio window and I was able to draw and paint the mother and two chicks.” It was a formative experience for Riddell. She adds that she and her husband Ed Riddell made contributions towards helping to rehabilitate injured raptors; the money paid for lots of frozen mice. The Raptor Center is one of Jackson’s great treasures, says Lee Riddell.
