Randy peyton final catalog 11 7 2014

Randy Peyton Bluebonnets

from the J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art Selections

Vol. 1 2014 edition

All artwork photography courtesy of J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art and the artist.

Prices are for current artwork, and can change at any time.

Š 2014 JR Mooney Galleries 305 S. Main Boerne, Texas 78006 830-816-5106 Edited by Gabriel Diego Delgado and Marla Cavin.

Randy Peyton Bluebonnets

from the J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art Selections

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Director’s Note

For over the last three decades, Mr. Bob Mooney, President of J.R. Mooney Galleries has been showing the signature artworks of San Antonio artist, Randy Peyton. Selling hundreds and hundreds of original paintings, prints and giclees; Peyton’s work resides in many affluent art collections in the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Mooney started to represent Randy Peyton’s artwork when the artist was a mere 19 years old. Today, Peyton is 56, painting the beloved bluebonnets and lyrical landscapes that are cherished by art aficionados and appreciators alike.

In the process of studying Peyton’s artwork, I discovered the root of his artistic success. If you look at the originators of the bluebonnet landscape genre, like the Onderdonk family, Porfirio Salinas, Robert Wood, Arpe, W.A. Slaughter, etc. etc.; you can tie in a direct visual connection of Peyton’s visual aesthetic to this significant historical lineage. In other words, a lot of painters have painted bluebonnets and only a few make a living doing it. Peyton has been so successful because he follows the historical model laid out before him. His compositions and aesthetic do a great tribute to those of the artists mentioned above.

Peyton does not try to improve on any of the characteristics of the bluebonnet painting. He bravely gives us rolling Texas hill country like Salinas’s, impressionistic flowers like the Onderdonk’s and great aesthetic like Slaughter. He stays true to the genre and gives us an opportunity to view a contemporary artist who captures the essence of this South Texas phenomenon.

This curatorial selection of artwork in this catalog is only an example of the collection available. Spotlights on the proceeding pages include artworks in private collections as well as those available in the Boerne, Texas gallery location.

-Gabriel Diego Delgado Gallery Director

Randy Peyton was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1958. At the age of fifteen he began his quest in painting the endless landscapes of Texas, favoring the bluebonnet. Peyton considers himself a self taught artist; having meticulously studied the paintings of Robert Wood, Porfirio Salinas, Don Warren, W. A. Slaughter, and many other regional landscape masters.

Randy Peyton portrays the Southwest using a palette of fresh colors and a style attributable to the majesty and tranquility of those awesome oaks found in Texas. When one views a Peyton Hill Country scene, it's obvious that the artist is familiar with his subject. This is due to the fact that Randy was born and reared in the beautiful hill country surrounding San Antonio, Texas.

Peyton made his mark capturing the various hues of our state flower - the bluebonnet.

He has since extended his talent with the brush and palette to include airy summer scenes, brilliant autumn scenes, and peaceful winter scenes.

Peyton went to college in California, where he studied Computer Science, but he dedicated himself to art full time in 1980. His first show sold out in 40 minutes. In 1981 he moved back to San Antonio. He continues to live and work here.

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"From a very young age I knew I wanted to be an artist. It seems all my friends were jealous because I was the only one who really knew what I wanted to do."

-Randy Peyton

Detail

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South of Town

24” x 36” Oil

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“Traditional landscape painter Randy Peyton, shows a time honored scholarly application of technique, application and compositional study.

He plays the role of student as he methodically th mimics the aesthetics of a signature 19 century impressionistic painting.�

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

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A Treat in the Hills

16” x 20” Oil

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Randy Peyton represents the new cohort of Texas andscape Painters; leading a post-Onderdonk eneration of bluebonnet bounty. Peyton has aptured the Texas landscape like a scenic shaman, eating emotional and nostalgic reminiscences.

Detail

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Gentle Trail Through the Hills

24” x 24” Oil

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“Peyton causes the viewer to relax in an art induced meditation.�

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Detail

RANDY PEYTON

Laundry Day in the Hill Country

30” x 24” Oil

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“As an Impressionistic painting, Peyton captures the true essence of the changing of light—as the day winds down slowing engulfing the viewer with the blue haze milieu.”

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

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Foundation of the Republic

40” x 30” Oil

Detail

Grand Oak Private Collection

16” x 20” Oil

Bluebonnet landscape paintings have been revered, prodded and poked, coveted and chastised; an ongoing joke of over-produced Sunday painters- a favorite category to paint of “holiday” painters. However, the history of such a genre of painting has deep roots in Texas and especially San Antonio. Home to the great bluebonnet painters like the Onderdonks, Salinas, Wood, Arpe, Slaughter and a small legion of others, Texas takes pride in its state flower in art history, knowing it has inspired these great artists to produce such magnificent work. Along with this museum collected success story comes positive growth of this art form with subsequent generations of painters that have studied the bluebonnet masters and raised the painting style to new levels; clearing the way for bluebonnets to be well-respected within the artistic landscape of modern painting.

Traditionalist landscape painter Randy Peyton shows a time honored scholarly application of technique, application and compositional study. He plays the role of student as he methodically mimics the aesthetics of a signature 19th century impressionistic painting.

Peyton’s rolling countryside landscape eases down into a valley, exposing the rustic rooftop of a barn weathered from decades and decades of sun drenched Texas weather. He provides an avenue and movement for our eye to follow as we move from foreground to background. Plus, Peyton’s stark shadows create illusionistic depth showing the Live Oak’s character.

Cactus litter the ground, giving grace to the solar qualities of light, playing color on color with more emphasis on the direct sunlight, its angle in the sky and the projected shade it transmits onto the vegetation around it. The Texas sky, a signature trait of these parts is often portrayed as ever expanding.

© Gabriel Diego Delgado

Randy Peyton represents the new cohort of Texas Landscape Painters; leading a post-Onderdonk generation of bluebonnet bounty. Peyton has captured the Texas landscape like a scenic shaman, creating emotional and nostalgic reminiscences. He causes the viewer to relax in an art induced meditation.

South of Town, a 24 x 36” oil painting by Peyton, is a classic example of a signature style; complete with bluebonnets, live oaks, a small barn, a horse carriage trail and semi-arid vegetation. Peyton understands his role in the historical timeline of Texas landscape painters and this knowledge allows him a certain freedom evident in his images.

Bluebonnets bookend the sides of the gravel path that snakes through the painting like a question mark — pulling your eye straight to the horizon line and over to the dominate live oak on the left side of the mid-ground. To balance out the composition, Peyton places the wood paneled brown barn opposite of the ominous and mature tree. The humbled hay hangar opens its wide doors showing a shadowed interior. Deep obscurity hides straw bales and husbandry necessities. The roof peaks and pitches slant down to a diminutive corral — vacant of any animals. Although the dirt trail shows signs of wear, the total intuitive emptiness of the location implies an abandoned site — a ranch hidden deep in the backwoods of Texas. Impressionistic bluebonnets are minimally detailed, allowing for assumptions of validity. The official state flower of Texas is arranged in 7 neat patches of underbrush — each lining the trail to the barn. Spotted with yellow and pink flower variations, we see a deliberate attempt to establish geography, but not caring for a realistic rendition of regional botany.

The main players of this scenic sonata are the three Live Oaks that secure a stoic trifecta of Quercus fusiformis. Each one is placed in strategic areas of the composition — far left, far right and exact center. Accented with spare cactus and open skyline, Peyton’s work compels us to imagine ourselves in the typical barren landscapes of the Southern United States — feeling the arid heat and listening to the sounds of crickets.

-By: Gabriel Diego Delgado

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South of Town

24” x 36” Oil

An exaggerated curvature shapes the foreground — elevating the viewer to the top of an unknown hillside, a vista overlooking a scenic landscape. In the distance is the silhouetted backdrop a major metropolis – complete with capital building and highrises.

Working on a simplistically balanced composition, Looking East has a mirrored effect with the likes of live oaks that dominate the foreground. Alongside the minimal tree line is the tri-level cactus strata that are almost too perfect in shape and intervals. Again the cactus and bluebonnets are arranged in a dual configuration that is cut across the forefront of the footpath. With the trail entering the picture plan in the middle of the painting, our eye goes straight up the path, and into the mid and background, with our first interest being drawn into the blue miasma skyline.

By: Gabriel Diego Delgado

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Looking East

22” x 34” Oil

Moonlit Sonata is a painting that is more about the sheep on the distinctive horizon line, as Peyton disengages from his signatory architectural artistry to breathe life into a highly unusual pre-nocturnal livestock flock. Grazing on numerous and overgrown vegetation, the sheep speckle hints of grey and white along an already abundant floral field. Blending in hue and scale the animals do not distract from the foreground of blooming clusters. The mid ground in Moonlit Sonata is subjugated by two mature tree clusters behind a ranchland posted fence, obstructing the view of a shadowy tree line under a moonlit sky.

Peyton’s pictorial illustration of the celestial moon is over exaggerated as if to mimic some alien-esque landscape similar to our own. Full in its entirety, the lunar satellite is round with perfection — illuminating the private estate of some Texas rancher. Although a yellowish haze drifts up from the lessened background, there is only a minimal painterly sense of the diminishing sunlight.

As an Impressionistic painting, Peyton captures the true essence of the changing of light — as the day winds down slowing engulfing the viewer with the blue haze milieu.

-By: Gabriel Diego Delgado

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Moonlit Sonata Private Collection

18” x 36” Oil