Four Legends of Santa Fe Painting

Four Legends of Santa Fe Painting

John Fincher Woody Gwyn Forrest Moses Tom Palmore

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Four Legends of Santa Fe Painting John Fincher Woody Gwyn Forrest Moses Tom Palmore June 10 - July 16, 2022

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Forrest Moses, October Dream, Vermont Stream, nd, oil on canvas, 48 x 50 inches

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Four Legends of Santa Fe Painting celebrates the masterful works of four of Santa Fe’s most accomplished contemporary painters: John Fincher, Woody Gwyn, Forrest Moses, and Tom Palmore. Each of these four artists came to Santa Fe during the rise of contemporary art in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, becoming known for rethinking subject matter steeped in history. In New Mexico, they found success, received critical notice, and achieved iconic stature as preeminent artists and as representatives of contemporary painting to museums, collectors, and gallery visitors from across the United States.

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For more than 40 years, John Fincher has been known for his legendary images of prickly pears, mountain pines and poplars, big skies, and desert landscapes—what he has called “trappings of the West.” In his art, Fincher implements a dramatic use of perspective, nuanced brushwork, and intense points of contrasting colors to imbue his idiomatic Southwest subjects with a Pop Art inflection and a sense of the heroic.

Fincher fi rst resided in Santa Fe for two summers in the late 1960s, eventually returning for good in 1976.

John Fincher Still Life: Belts, oil on linen 36 x 48 inches

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John Fincher Blue Leaf Limb, 2011 oil on linen 36 x 42 inches

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John Fincher S.W. Winged Victory #2, 1981 oil on canvas 34.25 x 38.25 inches

John Fincher Bull Rider #2, c. 1980 oil on paper 29 x 21 inches

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John Fincher After Delacroix, 2017 oil on linen 34 x 32 inches

Lucy Lyon Wave Length, 2022 cast glass and bronze 10 x 20 x 7.5 inches

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John Fincher South of Pecos, nd oil on canvas 40 x 60 inches

John Fincher Near Crillon Le Brave, 1998 oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches

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John Fincher Red Clay, 2013 oil on linen 28 x 30 inches

John Fincher Getty Pine, 2009 oil on linen 44 x 56 inches

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John Fincher Desert Scene #4, 1971 oil on canvas 40 x 50 inches

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John Fincher Desert Scene #7, 1971 oil on canvas 40 x 50 inches

John Fincher Late November, 1998 oil on canvas 60 x 48 inches

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John Fincher Four Poplars, 1987 oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches

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John Fincher Big Sky, 2018 oil on canvas 18 x 34 inches

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John Fincher South by Southwest, c. 1980s oil on canvas 32 x 54 inches

Having moved from his West Texas home in 1974, Woody Gwyn found in New Mexico’s awe-inspiring sense of space and scale the ideal environment to center his artistic practice. He quickly attained notice for his unconventional approach to composition, incredible detail, and remarkable clarity of light, converting the landscapes of New Mexico— and sometimes Texas and California—into visual allegories of speed, light, or geometry. This transformation of the landscape—one mindful of space, edge, and surface—is emblematic of a systematic approach to the picture plane that hints at modes of abstraction.

Woody Gwyn Rio Sapello, 2020-22 egg tempera on panel 60 x 41.75 inches

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Woody Gwyn Alcalde, 2020-22 egg tempera on panel 36 x 48 inches

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Woody Gwyn Arrows, 1984 oil on canvas 48 x 84 inches

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Woody Gwyn Plaza Blanca, 2022 egg tempera on panel 2 x 13 inches

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Woody Gwyn Mora Grove, 2001 egg tempera on canvas 48 x 120 inches

Woody Gwyn Azul, 2018-2019 egg tempera on panel 36 x 48 inches

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Woody Gwyn Sun/Sea, 2021 mixed media (monotype) 17.63 x 35 inches frame: 37.13 x 49.5 inches

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Woody Gwyn Road Cut, 1986 oil on canvas 60 x 86 inches

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Woody Gwyn Manzano/Primavera, 2022 egg tempera on panel 48 x 90 inches

Woody Gwyn Big Dipper, 2021 mixed media (monotype) 21.07 x 26 inches framed: 32 x 35.75 inches

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Woody Gwyn Small Dipper, 2021 mixed media (monotype) 10.25 x 10.13 inches framed: 34.13 x 23.44 inches

Woody Gwyn Comanche Gap I oil on linen 29.75 x 36 inches

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Woody Gwyn Summer Light, 2018-19 egg tempera on panel 36 x 36 inches

Woody Gwyn Bixby, 2010 oil on linen 12 x 192 inches

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Woody Gwyn Wind Shift oil on canvas 96 x 72 inches

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Woody Gwyn Summer Coast I, 2018-19 gouache on board 13 x 14.38 inches

Over a distinguished career of more than five decades, Forrest Moses (1934-2021) delighted in conveying images of rivers, forests, and the stirring colorsof changing seasons through distinctive and complex rhythms of color, line, and form. Moses sought to convey in his paintings a sense of being in a place, transforming the landscape in order to manifest what he called an “expressionistic response to a fi gurative subject.” Born in Virginia, Moses relocated to Santa Fe in 1969, where he became a beloved Santa Fe figure for his carefully balanced paintings as well as his works in the monotype medium.

Forrest Moses Untitled, 1988 oil on canvas 34 x 36 inches

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Forrest Moses Bosque Grasslands, 203 oil on canvas 40 x 96 inches

Forrest Moses Rio Chama at Ojo Caliente, c. 1990 oil on canvas 34 x 36 inches

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Lucy Lyon Canyon Blanca, 1984 oil on canvas 48 x 50 inches

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Forrest Moses Bosque with Blue, 204 oil on canvas 40 x 96 inches

Forrest Moses Morning Light, October, 1991 oil on canvas 72 x 48 inches

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Forrest Moses October Dream, Vermont Stream, oil on canvas 48 x 50 inches

Forrest Moses A Bit of Stream, 2012 oil on canvas 50 x 52 inches

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Forrest Moses Summer Water Run - Sangre de Cristo #3, 1982 oil on canvas 40 x 60 inches

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Forrest Moses Autumn Reflection, 2012 oil on canvas 36 x 75.75 inches

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Forrest Moses Arizona Waterway - October, 1994 oil on canvas 36 x 96 inches

Forrest Moses Deep Wood Pond, 2012 oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches

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Forrest Moses Rocks & water, October Lights, Rio Grande, 1983 oil on canvas (triptych) 48 x 198 inches

Even before his arrival in Santa Fe in 1980, Tom Palmore had gained notice for his surreal, wry, and humorous portraits of apes, birds, tigers, and various other wildlife subjects. While the traditions of portraiture historically served a variety of social, cultural, and even political functions, Palmore builds on these presuppositions by activating his viewers’ sense of irony with his combination of technical precision and deadpan whimsy. With various points of reference across ecology, art, and history, Palmore’s art blurs the boundaries between photorealism and the absurd, art and artifi ce, human and animal.

Tom Palmore Pretty Boy, 2021 oil & acrylic on canvas 48 x 60 inches

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Tom Palmore Big Baby, 2021 oil & acrylic on canvas 60 x 48 inches

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Tom Palmore China White, 2014 oil & acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 inches

Tom Palmore Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? oil & acrylic on canvas 35 x 48 inches

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Tom Palmore My Redheaded Friend, 2016 oil & acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 inches

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Tom Palmore Tropical, 2021 oil & acrylic on canvas 60 x 48 inches

Tom Palmore Snow Princess, 2018 oil & acrylic on canvas 32 x 50 inches

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Tom Palmore Roadrunner oil & acrylic on canvas 48 x 60.25 inches

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Tom Palmore Sweet Landscape, New Mexico, 2012 oil & acrylic on canvas 24 x 36 inches

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Tom Palmore Gorilla in an English Garden, 1983 acrylic on canvas 60 x 72 inches

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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2022 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 82 Artwork © Each Artist