Art in the West

High Spirits at the Miniatures and More Show

By Seonaid B. Campbell, 9-21-06

	ABOVE: A woman bids on painting in a sealed bid auction in the "More" room. BELOW: A capture of Bob Kuhn’s High Spirits, which Collector and art dealer Alan Fama won for an undisclosed amount. "Over $30,000," he said. Photos by Seonaid Campbell

At the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming last week, a tony crowd of art collectors dressed to the hilt in neo-western garb pursued the work of the artists they admire. For the artists present, the 19th annual Western Visions: Miniatures and More Show was not only a fundraiser for the museum but a chance to leave their solitary studios and visit with their artist peers.

"This event is the only time I feel like an artist," joked Tina Close, a longtime participant in the show and Jackson local. Sculptor Margery Torrey laughed and added, "We should exchange numbers. I don’t have much interaction with other artists." Close, dressed elegantly in a long black embroidered jacket, and taxidermist cum rancher Torrey, who wore a cowboy hat and buckskin shirt, met this year at the Wild West Artist Party.

The following night at the invitational Miniatures and More Show, the work -- in dimensions less than nine by twelve inches -- of one hundred and fifty painters and sculptors was exhibited. The board chairman emeritus, Bill Kerr, described the event as a means of "bringing together the collecting world with artists."

As a result of the museum’s goal to raise money by courting collectors, the 19th annual Miniatures Show is no longer restricted to wildlife art. Yet masters of the genre still participate, and they still represent the best of what the show has to offer.

Were I a collector, I would have bid on renowned wildlife artist Bob Kuhn’s twenty-four by thirty-two inch acrylic painting, High Spirits, which was part of a separate sealed bid auction. The "More" of the Miniatures and More Show.

This deeply satisfying painting of two whitetail bucks took possession of my soul. Unable to acquire it myself, I determined to meet the winning bidder at evening’s end. I had to know its destiny, for paintings, like land, are held only for a time by stewards.

In many respects, artists are stewards of the muse, and for collectors they must try to describe the muse by writing the dreaded artist’s statement -- text that accompanies an image of the artwork in the show’s catalog.

Swedish artist Lars Jonsson, an enormous, handsome man, with tousled blond hair and a vast grin, towered a good two feet above me as he bent forward to explain his artist’s statement. "I try to formulate color and value, and at a certain point it’s so flexible I have to give up. I dissolve."

Jonsson, a rock-star-famous bird painter often works in the field. "It is about how I feel," he continued. "I feel like I am a part of everything, a part of nature, spirit." Then he laughed, "It will sound mystical to people."

Mystical or not, Jonsson’s paintings depict bird species with uncommon scientific accuracy. (His Study of a Willet sold for $4,500). He and artists like Bob Kuhn, Kent Ullberg, Tina Close, and Robert Bateman are as much students of their subjects as they are of their chosen medium.

"I want to know what a penguin feather looks like!" Close said to her friend Ullberg.

"I've skinned many penguins," replied Ullberg, who was curator at the Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery for years. "The feather is very thin. It is small, stiff, and bristly, so as to be hydrodynamic."

"You mean shaped like an ear covert feather, high in density?" asked Close.

"Exactly."

After years of observation, these artists have developed an intimate familiarity with the animals they depict. Ullberg’s bronze of a lion and lioness stretching in the setting African sun is as sensually provocative as the double entendre of its title, Afterglow. It sold in the "More" auction for more than $5,900.

In part, my experience hunting whitetail deer informed my reaction to Bob Kuhn’s High Spirits. The painting evoked the same rush of adrenalin I’d felt when a whitetail doe rocketed straight over my head as I sat with my back to an irrigation ditch. But I was also taken by the paintings luscious color and unusual composition.

The leaping buck in the foreground expresses the vitality of his sleek body while the buck in the background stands still, unstartled. There is no urgency, although there is tension where the antlers of one touch the other. A streak of gold, representing a track of water reflecting the dry grass’s color, continually draws our eye to the right of the canvas. Again, and again our eye leaps leftward with the energetic buck in the foreground.

"He’s the only person who would even try to pull that off," said Texan art collector Alan Fama of the painting’s odd composition. "You don’t see other artists taking that chance."

In his artist's statement Kuhn wrote, "It is in the fall of the year when white tail bucks are in prime, their combative spirits soar. That is the time when they are at their fittest and their verve is visible to all."

Bill Kerr’s verve was visible to all after the auction. The venerable collector and his wife Joffa founded the Museum. This year’s Miniatures Show raised $300,000 to support the Museum’s exhibitions and educational programs.

Collector and art dealer Alan Fama won Bob Kuhn’s High Spirits for an undisclosed amount. "Over $30,000," he said.

The painting possesses me still.

As for the painting’s destiny, Fama assured me that High Spirits will hang in his office where he can admire it daily.

Seonaid B. Campbell has attended the Miniatures Show for many years as the guest of her mother, Tina Close. Someday she hopes to coax Alan Fama to sell her High Spirits. For now, she’s content with a jpg.

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