Vail Fine Art Gallery First impressions are important. The Impressionists that occupy Jim Tylich’s Vail Fine Art Gallery desire to make an impact that lasts a lifetime. After 22 years as the owner of the gallery, Tylich has developed an eye for Impressionism, which invokes the artist’s point of view through colorful oil paints and strong brush strokes. His gallery has Impressionist art that stretches from such far-flung places as Australia, Peru and Azerbaijan. Tylich’s personal interest is Russian Impressionism, characterized by underlying gray tones beneath bright colors that add depth to a scene. In the Russian style, a shirt that appears white is in fact composed of a multitude of hues, reflecting the other colors in the painting. A rare acquisition for an art collector, Tylich has been able to purchase entire bodies of work of some Russian Impressionists.
“Under the Communist system, the Russian artists really couldn’t buy or sell art. They sold a little, but not much,” Tylich says. “An artist who painted 50 pieces a year, which is about normal for a major artist, they painted for 10 years straight without being able to sell very many at all. They would end up with two or three hundred artworks in their home. This is unheard of anywhere else in the world.” — RT
Masters Gallery
“Rachmaninoff, Gorky & Shaliapin, 1917,” Vail Fine Art Gallery
Sculptor Gib Singleton’s body of work is so wide and deep, so varied in subject and scope, it can be daunting to put a label on it. To be sure, the artist doesn’t want a label — he is who he is and he does what he does, every day. Every single day. But Paul Zueger, who’s represented Gib for decades in his family of galleries, knows just how to sum up the style of the sculptor’s work: emotional realism. “That means when you see them, you never forget them,” Zueger says. Life is not pretty, it’s not about knights in shining armor or touched-up photographs. It’s about the real moment, about reality, and that’s the kind of thing that stays with you. That’s emotional realism.” Singleton is the only artist ever to be represented simultaneously in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Vatican Museum and the state of Israel. There is a peculiar magic about his work. Nobody just shows up as the subject of a sculpture — everybody has a story, a reason, a goal. Whether it’s Jesus Christ wordlessly trying to assuage the guilt of the soldier nailing him to the cross, the winged Icarus plunging to earth on a trail of melting wax, or a Pony Express rider (and his mount) racing toward home delivery, every last one of them has something that propels them into action. — WW
“Pony Express,” Gib Singleton
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