Colorado – MATTHEWS GALLERY BLOG

SMALL TREASURES: Can’t-miss lots from our fall auction

November 16, 2013 Matthews GalleryLeave a comment

We picked a particularly electrifying time in the art world to throw an auction. A triptych by Francis Bacon just flew off the block for a record-breaking $142.2 million, and the highest-valued Andy Warhol painting ever sold for $102 million. Our European, American and Southwestern Art Auction doesn’t feature price tags that are quite as high, but there are gems throughout the catalogue that would fit into the finest collection. The image above is a watercolor by legendary Colorado landscape painter Charles Partridge Adams (1858-1942) that measures just 13.5 x 17.5 inches and starts at $1,700 in our sale. Check out more lots below, and make sure to place your bids before the auction ends on November 17.

Lot 16: Jack Merriott- Untitled (Boat Dock Scene)
Starting bid: $1,700
Estimated value: $2,200-$3,200

English artist Jack Merriott (1902-1968) is best known for his travel posters commissioned by British railway companies that were displayed in train compartments. This watercolor shows the illustrator’s softer side. Click here to view the lot and register to bid.

Lot 60: Francesco Spicuzza- Children at Beach
Current bid: $250
Estimated value: $350-$750

Francesco Spicuzza (1883-1962) was a talented lithographer and painter, and is one of the most prolific artists ever in his home state of Wisconsin. In this 13.5 x 15.5 in. gouache painting on board, three small figures frolic through the waves on a beach day. Click here to view the lot and register to bid.

Lot 107: Doug Higgins- Horse & Cowboy
Starting bid: $850
Estimated value: $1,200-$1,750

Santa Fe, New Mexico artist Doug Higgins (born 1939) uses simple, elegant lines to depict a cowboy tending to his horse in this charcoal drawing. Click here to view the lot and register to bid.

Don’t forget to bid in our auction before 7 pm on November 17, and browse more highlights in our blog post START YOUR BIDDING: Colorful lots from our fall auction. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for gallery news.

ONE WORK OF ART: Charles Partridge Adams

October 29, 2013 Matthews Gallery1 Comment

When Charles Partridge Adams moved from Vermont to Denver in 1876, it had nothing to do with art. The 18-year-old’s family hoped Colorado’s arid climate could save his sister from tuberculosis. The girl died, but Adams discovered unexpected beauty in the tragic situation.

The teen fell in love with the Rocky Mountains, enrolling in art classes a year after his arrival so he could learn to capture their majesty. It was his first and last formal training. For the rest of his days, Adams developed his skills on intrepid painting expeditions across Colorado and the American West.

“I saw the Rocky Mountains as I had dreamed of them before I came West,” Adams wrote of a horseback ride in Estes Park in 1881. “Towering above a great valley filled with afternoon mists, their summits glistening with the pure white of winter snows. They formed an entrancing sight that I can never forget.”

Adams started out as a realist, but by the 1890s he was removing details and loosening his brushstrokes. He developed a bright, impressionistic style and took cues from tonalism, carefully detailing the thin mists that cleave to the foothills of the Rockies in the morning and the almost opaque storm clouds that crown their peaks in the afternoon.

The artist’s influences are clear in “Untitled (Landscape)”, a serene watercolor of a still lake under a sunset sky. Splashy clusters of brushstrokes form wild foliage that contrasts with the crystalline water, and the sky above fills the air with a rosy haze. Adams was known for his bold palette, but here he used muted colors in thin layers to mimic the atmospheric effects of dusk. His touch is so delicate that the lightest ribbon of color in the sky isn’t paint but bare white paper.

“He was… sophisticated in his use of watercolor,” says Thomas Smith, director of the Denver Art Museum’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art, which organized an exhibition of Adams’ work last year. “This was a self-taught artist, but he really grew up and he really taught himself things about the medium.”

“Untitled (Landscape)” may measure just 6 1/2 by 10 1/4 inches, but Adams had the loftiest intentions no matter the size of the paper. “At his best, the landscapist is able through the grandest, as well as the humblest forms of earth and sky and sea, to at least suggest the grandeur, poetry, mystery and beauty of this natural world,” he wrote. It was with these noble ambitions that Adams would become one of Colorado’s most beloved landscape painters of all time.

Come see Charles Partridge Adams’ “Untitled (Landscape)” in our NEW HORIZONS: Focus on Landscapes show. If you’d like to inquire about the piece, don’t hesitate to call the Matthews Gallery at 505-992-2882 or connect with us through Facebook or Twitter.

NEW HORIZONS: Landscape Art Speaks

October 19, 2013 Matthews GalleryLeave a comment

For our NEW HORIZONS: Focus on Landscapes show, running now through October 27, Tesuque sculptor Frank Morbillo‘s latest body of work engages with our diverse collection of contemporary landscape art. Throughout the exhibition, you’ll find observations by Morbillo and seven other artists, many of whom are inspired by the same severe desert expanses and infinite skies. Below is a selection of works and quotes from the show:

PATTERN

Frank Morbillo finds patterns wherever he looks in the natural world.
Kate Rivers uses manufactured patterns to form fractured reflections of nature.

“What’s a pattern? Something that might be predictable. When I observe things, that’s what I see. As an artist, you take all of these different things and see how they work together.”

-Frank Morbillo

“I’m using this history of text and image as something that is beautiful, and weaving the words together.”

-Kate Rivers

RHYTHM

David Grossmann abstracts his landscapes to lay bare underlying rhythms.
Frank Morbillo traces the formation and disruption of natural rhythms.

“My paintings… are simplified rhythms of color, light, and shape. On the surface they are quiet whispers, but I hope that they convey a depth of emotion to anyone who takes the time to stop and listen.”

-David Grossmann

“Entropy is the introduction of chaos and disorder. That’s a root of what I’ve done over the years. You take something that could be highly organized, and understand that everything, all things, are subject to entropy. As much as we feel like we’ve created something that defies that, there’s no chance. Everything is subject to it.”

-Frank Morbillo

TEXTURE

Terry Craig blends materials to mimic natural textures.
Frank Morbillo places materials with contrasting textures side-by-side.

“It took a long time… to develop the formulas and get the materials to do what I wanted them to do. You can scrape into it and get all sorts of these wonderful organic qualities.”
-Terry Craig

“Glass is a beautiful material that sets up this nice contrast with the metal. If you add texture to it, it takes on a different color. The light behaves differently going through it.”
-Frank Morbillo

COLOR

Jamie Chase uses multiple layers of paint to reveal and obscure different hues.
Frank Morbillo relies on the properties of glass to enhance his palette.

“There are so many narratives underneath the final painting. It starts out as something really dark or really dramatic in contrasting colors, and by the end it’s almost neutral colors, but there’s something moving under the surface.”
-Jamie Chase

“The glass introduced color into the work that really isn’t achievable in metal. The cobalt blues and reds and ambers have a quality that you can’t get with any of the metals.”
-Frank Morbillo

See NEW HORIZONS: Focus on Landscapes now through October 27 at Matthews Gallery. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to see more material from the show.