Show Preview | Richard Schmid - Southwest Art Magazine

Denver, CO
Gallery 1261, September 24-October 1

Richard Schmid, Aspen Forest—Rocky Mountain National Park, oil, 12 x 24.

This story was featured in the September 2016 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2016 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

Although Richard Schmid has lived in New England for years now, the acclaimed artist’s heart also holds an allegiance to the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountain West. Schmid and his wife, painter Nancy Guzik, once owned a home in the mountains above Fort Collins, CO, and they have visited and exhibited in Colorado many times over the years. So it is fitting that an important retrospective of Schmid’s work takes place in Denver this month.

Richard Schmid: A Retrospective Exhibition presents 30 masterworks from private collections, curated by Kristen Thies, owner of West Wind Fine Art. Thies has represented Schmid and Guzik since meeting them in Colorado in 1998. In addition, at least five new Schmid paintings are available for purchase. The show, co-hosted by West Wind Fine Art and Gallery 1261 in Denver, opens on Saturday, September 24, with an artist’s reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at Gallery 1261, and runs through October 1. The exhibition features works from across the genres for which Schmid is known—
figurative, landscape, and still life—while much of his new work focuses on flowers from his garden.

Also on Saturday, a fundraising event hosted by Thies takes place from noon to 4:30 p.m. at the History Colorado Center in Denver. Tickets include a luncheon and panel discussion with five prominent American artists, among them Quang Ho and Scott Burdick. The painters talk about Schmid’s influence on their art and the importance of painting from life. Charles Money, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Conservancy, offers a short presentation on the organization’s ongoing efforts to acquire and preserve available land within the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park. The afternoon also features a digital presentation on Schmid’s paintings of Colorado and an award ceremony recognizing the 81-year-old artist’s contributions to nonprofits in the state. A limited-edition fine-art print of his painting ASPEN FOREST—ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK is available, with proceeds going to the conservancy. “My aim is to honor both Richard Schmid and nature,” Thies says.

For his part, the internationally collected painter, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution and other major museums, has found himself lately drawn to the pure joy of painting the flowers from his own garden. “I am beginning to understand Monet’s state of mind as he aged,” he says, noting that after a career painting a variety of subjects, Monet returned many times to the water lilies in his garden pond. Another recent focus reflects Schmid’s longtime fascination with the parallels between painting and music. “Especially in my flower paintings,” he says, “I often think of my brush strokes as being like musical notes in a Mozart quartet or the beautiful arpeggios in Chopin nocturnes.” Although less delicate and more elemental, the beauty of the western landscape is equally compelling and important to Schmid. “For all the generations to follow us, I feel it is vital to save what natural beauty remains in the West while we can,” he says. —Gussie Fauntleroy

contact information
508.566.9463
www.westwindfineart.com