Grant Redden | Painting From Real Life

Grant Redden draws inspiration from his pioneer ancestors and ranch upbringing

By Gussie Fauntleroy

This story was featured in the May 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art May 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

IN THE DARKNESS of early morning, a teenage Grant Redden was charged with rounding up horses to move a sheep camp on his father’s southwest Wyoming ranch. He climbed bareback onto a horse he’d never ridden before and, by the faint light of the setting moon, headed off without hesitation on an unfamiliar trail. For a boy who was fascinated with the romance of the Old West and had a taste for the dramatic, the danger and unknown of that ride meant excitement. Years later Redden translates such firsthand experiences, along with stories of his pioneer ancestors, into paintings steeped in authenticity and rendered with skill. These qualities earned him six Gold Medal awards in his first seven years as a member of the Cowboy Artists of America, into which he was inducted in 2012.

“I really loved that life. It was wonderful,” says the 59-year-old artist, thinking back on his youth. He is sitting in the studio next to his home on 120 acres that once were part of his father’s summer sheep pasture. At almost 8,000 feet on a foothills road called Sheep Lane, with views of sagebrush and aspen out his studio windows, it’s a world that reminds him daily of the value of family, self-reliance, caring for the land and animals, and working hard. The timeless imagery in his paintings also celebrates the beauty of a landscape he has enjoyed and appreciated all his life.

GROWING UP ON A large sheep-ranching operation with one brother and six sisters, Redden got used to teamwork at a young age. By the time he was 6, he was wielding a paint brand, standing on a box to reach the sheep’s backs as they moved past him in a line. Through his boyhood and teen years he helped with everything from setting up corrals to heading up crews, irrigating, herding, leading packhorses, mending fences, fixing tractors, and mowing hay. His father, who served as a ranch foreman running 21,000 head of sheep, purchased his own outfit with 5,000 ewes and 300 cows when Grant was 12.

As much as Redden loved ranch life and time spent on the land, he didn’t aspire to continuing in the family’s line of work. “I never thought I would be a rancher. I always thought I’d be an artist,” he says. His interest in art had no precedent or role model among anyone he knew, but the urge to draw and paint was strong. As a small boy he was fascinated with a picture on the living-room wall: four powerful horses running away from a storm, straight toward the viewer. At the start of each summer his mother bought him a new box of 64 crayons and a Big Chief tablet. As a teen he began carrying sketchpads while he rode horses, camped, and worked on mountain pastures and around the ranch. “I was always looking at the beauty of the land, light bouncing off things, trees that were backlit. And I was remembering those things,” he says.

But it was during a high-school field trip to an art museum in Springville, UT, that Redden’s eyes were first opened to the magic of manipulating color and form. Standing up close to a particular painting, he wasn’t impressed. “As a youngster you think the more detailed a painting is, the better,” he says. “I was kind of puffed up in my own ability and was thinking: That’s just blotches and chunks of color, anyone could do that!” Continuing through the museum, he came back to the same painting, this time from a distance at the end of a hall. What he saw astounded him: It was a beautiful, detailed landscape. He got it. “I saw how you could create with color and pieces of paint,” he recalls.

Soon Redden discovered watercolors, then oils. Following high-school graduation and a two-year mission trip in Argentina (where he “learned Spanish and saw wonderful things and people”), he returned home and began a serious attempt at teaching himself to paint. He considered art school, but recalls that “everyone said you can’t make a living with art.” So he earned a degree in agriculture economics from Utah State University, where he met Annette, the woman who became his wife. After graduation he fell into contract work in real estate appraisal and continued to paint on his own.

One day in 1989 Redden gathered his courage and called an artist he knew. It was painter Jim Norton, whose family had moved near the Reddens when he was young and who had just been inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America. The younger artist, enthusiastic but floundering, asked if he could bring over some of his paintings to get Norton’s thoughts on them. “Jim set my works on the floor. He sat and looked at them and didn’t say a word for at least 10 minutes,” Redden remembers. “Finally he turned to me and said, ‘Well, they’re better than I thought they’d be.’”

Norton encouraged Redden to spend time studying the work of such masters as John Singer Sargent and Joaquín Sorolla. He suggested buying a French easel and painting outdoors, and invited Redden to come back once a month for critiques. He also suggested signing up for workshops, and over the years Redden has studied with acclaimed painters including Gerald Fritzler, Walt Gonske, Mark Daily, and Michael Lynch.

Eventually the day came when Norton looked at the younger artist’s paintings and announced, “These are ready for a gallery.” Redden was 30 years old. A few years later he decided to quit appraisal work. He was selling paintings by then, although not quite enough to support his family, so he continued working odd jobs including cutting poles in the forest. One day his brother was helping him when he offered a sharp opinion: “I don’t think you really want to be an artist. You just want the lifestyle.”

To put Redden’s dreams to the test, his brother challenged him to borrow money on his house and live off the line of credit for one year while painting full time. He did so, gradually building relationships with galleries and developing his skills. He credits his wife with making possible his transition into full-time art. “I couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been so supportive and very talented in making our home function without much,” he says.

TODAY WHEN Redden looks back at life on the land, he frequently reaches much farther back than his own experiences and those of his immediate family. In the mid-1800s his paternal great-great-great-grandfather, who had the unusual name of Return Jackson Redden, was a scout and bodyguard for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prophet Joseph Smith. Redden owned wagons and scouted trails for church pioneers as they headed west from Illinois. The artist’s maternal great-grandfather, Henry Rhodes Meeks, was an early freighter, hauling the first piano by wagon to Fort Bridger, WY. Redden’s mother was born in a log cabin in southwest Wyoming and rode a horse to a one-room schoolhouse until she was in high school.

Redden often recreates moments from homesteading and pioneering life in his art, sometimes painting from models—when his children were young, they were happy to dress up in period clothing and play this role. A historical working ranch not far from his home also offers inspiration, for example, as farmers use horse teams in their work. One such image, MOWING HAY, emerged from photographs the artist took last summer. As he sometimes does, he depicted the mowing activity but altered the landscape around it, creating a composition to fit the feeling he wanted to convey. “This one was primarily about paint. One of my motivations for painting is the beauty of the pigment itself,” he says. “In this piece I focused on design and craftsmanship, trying to get more beautiful color and texture in the surface.”

Redden began another painting with photos taken at the same historical ranch: OLD STONE BUNKHOUSE CORRAL, which sold at the Masters of the American West show in 2019. The bronc rider in the painting was inspired by the artist’s uncle, who hired out as a horsebreaker before enlisting in the army during World War II. “I love that old stone building,” Redden says. “So I created a landscape around it. When I’m out and about, I’m always looking at the landscape. I’m always gathering material in my mind or camera, and later it coalesces in paintings.”

Redden is also continually aware of his sensory experiences as he sketches, photographs, and observes—the rich smells of working horses and fresh-mown hay, the warmth of summer sun, the clicking and jingling of harnesses and buckles, the tread of animal hooves on soft earth. “I sup-pose I feel really blessed and lucky to notice what I notice and then later portray it,” he says. “I get a bigger kick out of the quiet moments than the hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-2-by-4 ones. The quiet moments feel more poignant and powerful to me.”

representation
Maxwell Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Mockingbird Gallery, Bend, OR; Simpson Gallagher Gallery, Cody, WY; Wilcox Gallery II, Jackson, WY; Wood River Fine Arts, Ketchum, ID; Wild Horse Gallery, Steamboat Springs, CO; The Grapevine Gallery, Norman, OK; Plainsmen Gallery, Dunedin, FL; www.grantredden.com.

This story was featured in the May 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art May 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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