Creighton Block Gallery Big Sky Montana and Altamira Fine Art Jackson WY

CREIGHTONBLOCKGALLERY.COM | 406-993-9400

Blood Brothers II | R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 60 x 60 inches

R. Tom Gilleon Trying to pigeonhole R. Tom Gilleon’s paintings into a particular art movement or genre is a fool’s errand. Gilleon’s interpretations of the American West are genuine, provocative and have a serious gravitational effect on the senses. He understands the places where the human heart and soul dwell. Those pieces of terra firma are part of his own identity, and they literally occupy a corner of his visual landscape.

Gilleon is old and seasoned enough to hold an AARP membership card in the pocket of his jeans. However, he is a rising star known for the vitality and freshness he brings to the easel. His work, in the permanent collection of numerous prominent museums, is coveted by collectors.

His representations of native teepees are archetypal and primitive in their basic forms yet remarkably contemporary in their aesthetic sensibilities. His landscapes are classic but exude spontaneity. Along with these, his panels and portraits of American Indians and cultural symbols are illustrative in their narrative quality, and at the same time so poignant in their iconography that one immediately thinks of Andy Warhol during the height of Pop and Op art.

Gilleon’s path to the West was roundabout. Born in 1942, he was raised in Florida by a set of grandparents who bestowed in him a confident rebel’s spirit. He grew up in the tiny outpost of Starke, near Jacksonville and the storied banks of the Suwannee River.

Later, he moved to California with a team of illustrators to work at Disney’s Imagineering studio in charge of designing Epcot Center. He went on to assist the company with its planning of Disneyland Tokyo, Disneyland Hong Kong and Disneyland Paris.

During the early 1980s, Gilleon and his wife attended an outdoor painting workshop in Montana and fell in love with a beautiful piece of property along the Dearborn River that snakes out of the Northern Rockies onto the high plains. The couple purchased the land and spent nine years building a home. They paid for the construction using the income they both derived from working as an illustrator and painting murals. For instance, Gilleon completed matte paintings for the movie, Dick Tracy. When a Hollywood screenwriter turned producer made the Gilleons an offer for their Montana hideaway that they couldn’t refuse, they took the proceeds and purchased a 2,000-acre ranch near Great Falls, Montana with the profile of Mt. Cecelia rising in the distance.

Buffalo Hills |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 16 x 16 Inches

Big Sky Scraper |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 48 x 36 Inches

Redwinged Blackfoot |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 48 x 36 Inches

Kick Iron |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 36 x 36 Inches

Tribal Triumvirate |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 60 x 120nches

Traditional Dancer | John Nieto | Acrylic on Canvas | 30 x 24 inches

John Nieto John Nieto is widely regarded as one of America’s most accomplished, dynamic and exciting contemporary artists. Nieto’s distinctive style, combination of subject matter, expressionist technique, and use of strong color is instantly recognizable and collectors throughout the United States and abroad prize his work. He has produced bronze sculptures, etchings, lithographs and silk- screen prints, in addition to drawings in pastel crayons and charcoal.

The past several years, however, have been devoted almost exclusively to painting.

Recent work features his bold use of bright color to evoke and illuminate the essence of the animals and human subjects he chooses. Nieto’s brushwork has become freer and looser in recent years, and he has commented that he is doing some of the truest work of his career. In 2011, at the age of 74, he told Cowboys & Indians Magazine, “At this stage in my life, I’m flooded with ideas for my art.”

In 1981, Nieto participated by invitation in the “Salon d’Autumn” at the Grand Palais, Paris, France, and in 1989 he mounted a one-man show at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Nieto received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Achievement in the Arts in 1994, and has served on the Advisory Boards for both the Wheelwright Museum and the Native American Preparatory School. He is represented in the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, and calls New Mexico his ancestral home.

John Nieto’s work is in the permanent collection of the numerous museums, including the Buffalo Bill Museum/Whitney Gallery of Western Art, National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Booth Western Art Museum, The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin, the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, and The Heard Museum.

God’s Dog | John Nieto | Acrylic on Canvas |68 x 84 inches

Liberty and Justice for All | John Nieto | Acrylic on Canvas | 72 x 60 inches

Buffalo DNA| John Nieto | Acrylic on Canvas | 40 x 44 inches

Greg Woodard Greg Woodard uses a unique patina process that allows each edition its own color and texture. He has always valued experimentation and innovation in order to further his artistic growth. Woodard is a master falconer and has a deep passion for understanding the raptors he studies. He carries the love and knowledge from these powerful birds into his work. Woodard believes each of his pieces tells a story; he shows this through the interaction between human and animal, expressing how they are affected. Another important feature of Woodard’s work is the railroad track theme, which symbolizes the cultural impact of the opening of the West. Museum collections and public installations include the Ella Sharp Museum, the Ward Museum, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, and other sites.

Woodard pushes his palette into new territory with this show. In one piece, a charging bull bison storms down a dilapidated railroad track, overtaking a turquoise ribcage of fallen kin. Woodard’s work is always steeped in a rich symbolism, and the weathered texture of his sculptures belies his contemporary perspective on the history of the West.

Eagle Medicine Man| Greg Woodard| Limited Edition Bronze | 30 x 18 x 12 inches

Plains Indian Shield | Andy Warhol| Serigraph | 36 x 36 inches

Andy Warhol American painter, printmaker, sculptor, draughtsman, illustrator, film maker, writer and collector. After studying at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh from 1945 to 1949, he moved to New York and began working as a commercial artist and illustrator for magazines and newspapers. His work of the 1950s, much of it commissioned by fashion houses, was charming and often whimsical in tone, typified by outline drawings using a delicate blotted line that gave even the originals a printed appearance; a campaign of advertisements for the shoe manufacturers I. Miller & Sons in 1955–6 (Kornbluth, pp. 113–21) was particularly admired, helping to earn him major awards from the Art Directors Club.

Warhol continued to support himself through his commercial work until at least 1963, but from 1960 he determined to establish his name as a painter. Motivated by a desire to be taken as seriously as the young artists whose work he had recently come to know and admire, especially Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, he began by painting a series of pictures based on crude advertisements and on images from comic strips.

These are among the earliest examples of Pop Art. The first such works, for example Water Heater (1960; New York, MOMA) and Saturday’s Popeye (1960; Mainz, Landesmus.), were loosely painted in a mock-expressive style that parodied the gestural brushwork of Abstract Expressionism. Those that followed, however, such as Before and After 3 (1962; New York, Whitney), one of several paintings based on advertisements for plastic surgery, were phrased in a deliberately inexpressive style of painting characterized by hard outlines and flat areas of colour.

Dennis Ziemienski From rattlesnakes to cowboys to western motel signs, Dennis Ziemienski juxtaposes the classic cowboy life with the increasing influence of Modernism. The scenes in his work accurately depict Western life in the 1940s, when railroads, vehicles, motels, and rodeos began to dominate the western landscape.

In this new show, Ziemienski turns his attention to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. With a rich palette and nostalgic style, Ziemienski has created timeless paintings of the Old Faithful Inn, geysers, grizzly bears, bison, Jackson Lake, snowy Teton scenes, and more.

“I wanted to show the astounding natural beauty of the landscape and wildlife, along with capturing some historical and seasonal imagery,” Ziemienski said.

Dennis Ziemienski was recently awarded the Jesse Arms Botke Award for Best Decorative Painting in the California Art Club’s 103rd Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition. He has won numerous awards and has had commissions by Time-Life, Levi-Strauss, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, in addition to Super Bowl XXIX, the 2006 Kentucky Derby, and the Sonoma Salute to the Arts. Churchill Downs selected Ziemienski as the Official Artist of the 2006 Kentucky Derby.

67 Montana| Dennis Ziemienski | Oil on Canvas | 26 x 48 inches

CREIGHTONBLOCKGALLERY.COM | 406-993-9400