As a child growing up in the concrete canyons of New York City, Bruce Aiken dreamed of someday living at the end of a long dirt road. Little did he know that this road would lead over five miles down a narrow, steep trail into the depths of another canyon—the Grand Canyon. Nor could he predict that he would live in this unlikely place for over thirty years. In a remote side canyon along a stream that ultimately flows into the Colorado River, Bruce and his wife Mary raised three children while he tended Grand Canyon National Park’s precious water supply at Roaring Springs . . . and painted. Out of this intimate relationship between the artist and his muse came a body of work unparalleled in the annals of Grand Canyon landscape painters. With a style labeled by some art critics as “authoritative realism,” these paintings reveal the multifaceted beauty of one of the world’s most alluring wonders through the eyes of someone who can truly call it home. As Bruce says, “My main idea is to paint scenes that say, ‘I was here. I saw this. This is a first-hand experience.’ Grand Canyon is not only big and beautiful, it’s pristine living . . . it’s still wild to me.” With an introduction by James Ballinger, Director of the Phoenix Art Museum, this volume showcases some of Aiken’s most stunningly beautiful pieces. A must-have for anyone interested in the Grand Canyon, intrigued by the unique life of the artist, or captivated by gorgeous art.

Bruce Aiken’s Grand Canyon: An Intimate Affair

Arts & Photography

McGarry, Susan Hallsten

Individual Artists

Grand Canyon Association

West of Camelot: The Historical Paintings of Kenneth Riley

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Gibbs-Smith

Tom Ryan and the cowboys of the 6666 Ranch

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

Such are the observations that filter through the galleries during Tom Palmore’s exhibitions in which animals steal the show.
Born in Ada and living in Oklahoma, Palmore emerged from the 1970s Photorealist movement as a maverick. His career includes more than a decade on the East Coast, where he refined his skills at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and exhibited in New York’s prominent contemporary galleries. Palmore used his technical virtuosity to explore his passion for the animal kingdom. Then as today, his monumental paintings received critical acclaim, and his incongruous juxtapositions of realistic primates in silk-and-velvet interiors earned him the nickname Gorilla Man.
Palmore’s fidelity to an animal’s visage is intended to make it proud. However, the contexts in which he places them are pure Palmore, infused with his penchant for wit and the unexpected. His portrait of Oscar, the famed rodeo bull, is set against Palmore-designed wallpaper of cowboys catapulted into the air. A rooster surveys its Grant Wood countryside, and an imposing lion is oblivious to the diminutive monarch butterfly that shares its epithet. In all cases, Palmore’s paintings loom large not only in scale but also in raised consciousness of the “earthlings with whom we share this planet,” as he says.

Earthlings: The Paintings of Tom Palmore

History & Criticism

Quaid Publishing

Out of the struggles of the Great Depression, Charles W. Thwaites (1904-2002) rose to prominence as a muralist and leading portraitist in Wisconsin. An active exhibitor in hundreds of local, regional, and national art exhibitions, he won awards and critical acclaim from New York to California.
Thwaites began his career straddling the cultural demands for a truly American art while being lured to the formalism of European modernism and the freedom of expression it espoused. When he moved to New Mexico in the 1950s, he found camaraderie with the Taos Moderns, going on to create sophisticated abstractions that synthesized his personal response with universal emotions.
In this first examination of Thwaites' biography and oeuvre, examples of his Wisconsin and New Mexico paintings are put into the context of American art. Also included are numerous excerpts from his writings, which are profound observations on the meaning of art and the goals of an artist who authentically responds to his inner spirit.
Freedom of expression, underpinned by a disciplined study of nature, art history, and the self, were the raison d'etre of this artist who disdained being labeled or placed in a category. As he noted, "There are 1,000 ways to paint, why limit yourself to one manner? It is of no importance whether a picture is 'modern,' 'academic,' or what have you. Is it good art, is it bad painting, or is it just indifferent? To understand yourself--to understand your personal philosophy--is to understand your likes and dislikes in an organized way."
Thwaites is destined to be recognized as one of America's most skilled, colorful, and admired post-World War II modernists.

The Art of Charles W. Thwaites: Freedom of Expression

SF Design, llc / FrescoBooks

In the history of art only a select number of artists distinguish themselves as originators of a personal idiom that reverberates beyond place and time. John Nieto is one of those originals. His eye-dazzling paintings rank him among the vanguard of contemporary American colorists.
Recognized worldwide for his signature blend of expressive colors, dynamic brushwork, and powerful compositions, Nieto is an American artist who speaks in a universal language. His personal story, told here for the first time, is a journey of discovery. His paintings combine reverence for his heritage with a sophisticated worldview. They are also autobiographical.
Nieto depicts Native peoples as icons of dignity and unity. His buffalo, bears, and coyotes are symbols of survival. Each is captured in pulsating saturated hues that affirm the vibrant spirituality inherent in all living things.

John Nieto: Forces of Color and Spirit

The state of Texas is a vast land of tremendous variety. From the lush piney woods of East Texas to the semiarid deserts of West Texas, from the Gulf Coast to the High Plains of the Panhandle, the land, people, and legends of the Lone Star State have inspired an equally diverse group of painters and sculptors.
Texas Traditions brings together both historic and contemporary artists, showcasing their work in more than 200 images as colorful as the men and women who created them. Michael Duty, who selected the artists appearing in the volume, authors a lead essay on historic Texas artists from the mid-19th through the early 20th centuries. Susan Hallsten McGarry interviews 36 contemporary artists whose paintings and sculptures pay homage today to the Texas ethos and reveal artistic influences that compel each artist toward his or her unique style and voice.
Texas Traditions is a library addition that refuses to stay on the shelf. Readers will enjoy endless hours of vibrant, moving imagery, Texas geography, and the kind of artistic personalities that reveal why Texas stands out as not only a place but also a persona.

Texas Traditions: Contemporary Artists of the Lone Star State

Duty, Michael

Fresco Fine Arts Pubns

For three decades, the signature "W. C. Hook" has connoted dynamic design, saturated color, and compelling brushwork. William Cather Hook's ability to straddle the border between pictorial illusion and pure paint, between traditional yet modern, has won him collectors worldwide. Less known about this versatile colorist is the breadth of his subject matter. Through his paintings and observations, Hook guides the reader on a journey that includes the back roads of northern New Mexico, the high country of the Colorado Rockies and Sangre de Cristos, and California's Route 1 coastline and central valley. The Sonoran Desert, English and Italian countryside, and garden still lifes are also the subjects of this master of acrylics, whose vision is inviting, vibrant, and infused with radiant light. Also explored in this retrospective is Hook's working methodology and his biography, from his Kansas roots to his current studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Carmel, California. Hook's love of the land and philosophy of art are complemented by his namesake, Pulitzer Prize winning author Willa Cather, whose comments parallel his passion for capturing the nuances of earth, sea, and sky.

William Cather Hook: A Retrospective

Throughout his four-decade career as a plein-air painter, Gregory I. McHuron (1945-2012) worked outdoors on almost a daily basis. His presence in the field was legendary in Jackson, Wyoming, where he lived, and in Grand Teton National Park, where he found many of his subjects. McHuron saw each day as an adventure, and the more remote the painting location the better. A committed wildlife artist, he considered himself to be "nature's interpreter and guard" and used his art and his voice to speak out on behalf of wild places and wild creatures. The true artist, he said, must "live his art and paint from the heart." This retrospective of McHuron's life in art is a story of living in the now, as well as a guide to finding what McHuron called the "WOW" that serenades your soul. It is a journey of discovery, as meaningful as it is colorful.

Gregory I. McHuron: Plein Air Master and Mentor

McHuron, Gregory I.

In the vernacular of the West, the term pure quill means "authentic; real, through and through." Barbara Van Cleve's gripping black-and-white photographs of the West she knows and loves give vision to that term. Born and raised on a working Montana cattle and horse ranch, for seven decades she has focused her lens on the land and sky, and the men, women, and animals who animate it. Through riveting compositions, subtle values, and captivating textures her photographs dispel the myths associated with the West while conveying its true adventure and compelling drama. In this first book featuring the breadth of her subject matter, readers experience her other themes, including Rodeo as Dance, striking night scenes, the Great Montana Centennial Cattle Drive series, and documentation of the Spanish Mission Trail in Baja California, Mexico. Honesty, consistency, and versatility are the hallmarks of Van Cleve's oeuvre, and pride of place is her brand.

Pure Quill: Photographs by Barbara Van Cleve

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Books by McGarry, Susan Hallsten