Show include works from some of the West's top artists

There are 35 pieces priced at approximately $90,000 in the show, which opened this past week in Memorial Hall. Sixteen artists are represented. A reception and grand opening is set for 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 19. It will be followed by performances by two well-known music groups, the Bald Mountain Rounders of Chadron and the Prairie Rose Wranglers of Kansas.

Both the art show and the concerts were added to the program after last year’s inaugural Cowboy Poetry Gathering drew a large crowd despite unfavorable weather. It is hoped that all three segments will continue on an annual basis.

The art show features the works of five area artists and 11 from farther west. It was coordinated by Ken Korte, exhibit design and display specialist for the college.

Several of the artists are friends of Korte that he made during the late 1970s and ‘80s when he was director of the Montana State Historical Society and the state museum in Helena.

“Of course, we wanted to have works from several area artists and then I began contacting the artists I had become acquainted with when I worked in Montana,” Korte related. “A few of them recommended other artists they knew and pretty soon we had put together what I think is a really nice show. I hope a lot of people come to look at it and that we have some sales so these artists and others will be encouraged to participate again.”

Korte believes the show is an extremely good one, particularly for a first-year exhibit.

“I had to talk kind of fast to get some of them to participate, but it has worked out really well. I’m proud of the show and think everyone who visits it will like what they see,” said Korte.

The local artists include Don Ruleaux, who is a Chadron State graduate, an adjunct faculty member at the college and, in Korte’s words, “a very distinguished artist who has won many awards for his work.” Ruleaux has two large water colors in the show, one of several buffalo that includes a white calf, and one of Longhorns lying in tall grass.

Ruleaux said he’s pleased to have been invited to participate in the show.

“Many of the artists are really well-known in Western art circles,” Ruleaux said. “It’s a high quality show. I know several of the artists and have read about many of the others in art magazines.”

The other Nebraska artists in the show and sale are Joan Buckles of Gordon, Mary Hunt of Gering, Dave Price of Valentine and Jim Whartman of Hemingford.

Buckles’ featured piece is a 24 by 36-inch painting of her husband’s black work horses drinking from a tank. Hunt has two bright still-life paintings that include colorful birds. Price is exhibiting a pencil drawing of a cowboy driving a herd of Hereford cattle and another of a cowboy gathering up his open-air kitchen while his three horses await their assignments. Whartman’s work includes a large landscape at sundown with buffalo in the foreground and badlands in the background.

Several of the artists are nationally prominent. For instance, Harley Brown of Tucson, Ariz., is a member of the Cowboy Artists of America and the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. He regularly displays at the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles. He was commissioned to do portraits of Ronald Reagan for his second inauguration.

“We have only one of Harley’s work while we have two from everyone else,” Korte said. “He said that’s all he had available. Everything he creates is sold almost immediately.”

Korte recalls that about 25 years ago Brown had an art show as the Montana Museum in Helena and all 45 to 50 pieces sold.

“He’s the best pastel artist in the United States. Nobody will argue with that,” Korte added.

Another veteran artist whose work is on display in Memorial Hall is Don Pretchtel of Creswell, Ore., who is frequently commissioned to paint Civil War scenes. His contributions to the CSC show are of a gunfight scene titled “Penalty For Early Withdrawal,” and a painting of a cowboy on horseback called “Into the High Country.”

There’s also mountain-man painting by Jack Hines of Big Timber, Mont., that is sure to attract attention. Hines’ wife, Jessica Zemsky, who specializes in painting children, also has two pieces in the show.

Three members of the well-known Lundeen family of Loveland, Colo., have provided bronze sculptures. George, who created the life-size sculpture of author Mari Sandoz that stands in front of the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center at CSC, is exhibiting pieces representing Lewis and Clark; his wife, Cammie, has two pieces with draft horses, including one of a harnessed mare and her suckling colt; and Mark, who is George’s brother, is displaying a statue of Pacos Bill with a gun slung over his shoulder and a saloon scene involving a garter.

One of the West’s leading wildlife sculptors, Joe Halko of Cascade, Mont., has contributed a bronze of three bighorn rams and piece involving an eagle in flight.

The show will remain open through Feb. 2.

--By Con Marshall, Director of Information