Show Preview | Cowboy Artists of America Exhibition & Sale

Will Rogers Memorial Center, Fort Worth, TX
November 1-2

The Cowboy Artists of America Exhibition & Sale is the show of the year for many in the Western art world, and the organization’s 58th annual event in November will demonstrate how the group’s members are “kicking it up a notch,” says CAA President Phil Epp. “Everybody is bringing their ‘A’ game.”

Once again held in Fort Worth, Texas, activities begin on Friday, November 1, with an awards dinner and preview party and continue Saturday, November 2, culminating with the exhibition and sale at the Will Rogers Memorial Center Round Up Inn. While CAA’s mission is to “authentically preserve and perpetuate the culture of Western life in fine art,” this year’s show proves that the artistic expression of that culture is ever-evolving. Cowboy Artist painters and sculptors are stretching out in exciting and innovative directions, Epp says.

Along with artwork by longtime, newly inducted and emeritus members, the exhibition will include pieces by guest artists Kevin Red Star, a member of the Crow Tribe of southern Montana, and Western painter Glenn Dean. In addition, Western Retrospective, a selection of art from the John and Charlotte Kimberlin Collection of Western Art, will be on view October 11 to November 3 at the Cattle Raisers Museum in Fort Worth. The Kimberlins are longtime collectors, CAA supporters and active members of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. They have hosted annual CA trail rides on their ranches in Texas and New Mexico and in 2020 were made honorary CAA members.

Western Retrospective features works by such esteemed Cowboy Artists as Joe Beeler, Bill Owens, George Phippen, Tom Ryan and James Boren. Also on view will be rarely seen paintings by others who have shaped Western art like Maynard Dixon, Robert Lougheed, Olaf C. Wieghorst, William R. Leigh and Frank Tenney Johnson.

On Saturday morning the public is invited to a special presentation, “Tipi Life: Culture of the Southern Plains Tribes,” by noted scholars Ken Weidner and Curtis Carter. Having spent decades studying Plains Indian life and culture, the pair will offer a view of that world through handmade, historically accurate replicas including bonnets, beaded regalia, parfleche, weapons and a tipi setup.

The CAA exhibition provides the opportunity for each artist to display as many as seven works, and this year’s show features several large-scale pieces. In Epp’s painting, TWO HILLS (9 feet wide by almost 5½ feet high), two clusters of riderless horses stand on flat-topped hills in a vast landscape under an immense sky. “It sure was fun to work on. I immersed myself in the scene,” the artist says.

Brandon Bailey, president of the CAA’s nonprofit educational arm, the Joe Beeler Foundation, will also have a large painting among his works. A LEGION OF HORRIBLES, measuring 4 by 6 feet, was inspired by a passage in Cormac McCarthy’s carefully researched historical novel Blood Meridian in which Comanche warriors approach on horseback dressed in clothing garnered through raids—one wears a Spanish conquistador’s helmet and armor while a second wears a wedding veil.

Another unusual piece, a wall-hung bronze by Dustin Payne, depicts the Mount Rushmore sculptor working on the massive face of Abraham Lincoln in stone. “That’s what’s exciting about the CA show,” Bailey says. “Collectors get to see some major pieces and new ways of looking at Western subject matter.” —Gussie Fauntleroy

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This story appeared in the October/November 2024 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety