MADDEN GALLERY AND SAKS GALLERY PREPARE FOR WESTERN ART SHOWS

Denver increasingly is recognized as a visual arts town, and two Mile High City gallery exhibitions will spotlight some of Colorado’s standout talents.

The Museum of Outdoor Arts rounded up 20 of the Rocky Mountain region’s top-tier artists for a group exhibition titled “Beyond the Western Horizon.” The show opens March 19 with a free and open-to-the-public reception from 5 to 8 p.m. in MOA’s Madden Gallery, a 10,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of the Palazzo Verdi office building constructed in Greenwood Village by the John Madden Company.

The exhibit completes a full circle for MOA’s director, Cynthia Madden Leitner. The daughter of the late Marjorie and John W. Madden, prior to co-founding MOA with her parents, she owned the Cynthia Madden Gallery in LoDo.

“I had a gallery on Market Street in the late ‘70s and haven’t worked with Western art since,” Madden Leitner said. “About 45 years later, I am renewed and refreshed in the Western genre. I found it especially fun to see watercolors by one of the artists, Buffalo Kaplinski, whose paintings I handled in my gallery all those years ago.”

Madden Gallery’s show will exhibit about 60 artworks: paintings, sculpture and mixed-media pieces.

“We asked for one to three works from each artist,” Madden Leitner said. “From what I’ve seen, Western art has become more inclusive. David Kammerzell’s works are a fresh and fun twist on traditional subject matter made contemporary. We’re showing Daniel Sprick’s landscapes painted from his high-rise condo near City Park, so they’re not traditional Western landscapes.”

She added: “I’m seeing more multimedia works outside of traditional bronze and oil paintings, and that’s exciting. We’ll have mixed-media works from Amy Laugesen, Maeve Eichelberger and Corbett Kessler.”

Laugesen sculpts horses from clay she imprints with handmade stamps and fires with her own glazes. Eichelberger fashions saddles from intricately tooled Plexiglass. Kessler covers cast skulls of wildlife with zillions of tiny glass beads.

AN ALL-STAR LINEUP OF WESTERN ARTISTS

Madden Gallery’s roster runs deep with talent. Many of the artists teach or have taught at the Art Students League of Denver, a major influence upon Denver’s visual art scene. Many — including Edward (Ned) Aldrich, Raj Chaudhuri, Eichelberger, Kammerzell, Laugesen, William Matthews, Daniel Sprick and Clyde Steadman — have participated in the annual Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale, one of the region’s premiere Western art events.

Most of the artists in Madden Gallery’s exhibit bring to the show an impressive pedigree. Sprick is widely regarded as one of the best Realists of our time. Matthews, well known in the watercolor world, owns William Matthews Studio, a prominent working studio and gallery in the RiNo Arts District. Kammerzell is preparing for his solo show titled “Golden Hour,” opening in July at Diehl Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Lorenzo Chavez has painted Western landscapes in oils and pastels for more than 40 years, as has Denver native, Bruce A. Gomez, an award-winning pastelist who created for the exhibit three new works inspired by Telluride.

“A lot of these artists know each other, and when they discovered they were in the show with people they knew, some made a decision to paint new works and create larger pieces or show works that have never been shown before, and that was exciting to me,” Madden Leitner said. “I love that about artists: They say, ‘New audience, new show, new opportunity: I’m going to create new work.’ It’s been really fun to have the artists drop off their art.”

Also in the Madden Gallery mix are Crystal Latimer, Michael Magrin, Patrick Oats, David Sherwin Parker, Craig Marshall Smith, Robert Spooner and David Uhl.

A GALLERIST’S PERSPECTIVE ON WESTERN ART

Chaudhuri — who won Coors Best in Show in 2024 — and Aldrich, whose paintings hang in many galleries and museums across the American West — along with Andrea Kemp are represented by Saks Gallery, a mainstay in Cherry Creek North for more than 50 years.

“Each of these painters has an extremely individual approach to their connection with Western art. This diversity is exactly what we mean when we talk about how Western Art can be observational, abstract, or conceptual while still being grounded in place,” said Bekka Saks, who took over the 75-year-old family business from her parents, Catherine and Mikkel Saks, in October.

On May 1, Saks Galleries will open a show titled “In Good Company,” a group exhibition celebrating the “Wednesday Night Painters,” an artistic assembly that has gathered in Denver for decades on Wednesday nights to paint live models together. With some overlap from the Madden Gallery show, the exhibit will also include prominent painters such as Quang Ho and Ann Gargotto.

Weaned on Western art, Saks holds a Bachelor’s degree in pre-Columbian archaeology and a Master’s in anthropology, but she’s also an authority on Western art.

“I grew up in the gallery, so my education in Western and American art really began at a very early age through direct exposure to artists, collectors and both the primary and secondary markets,” said Saks, who worked at numerous auction houses and ranks as one of only a few Certified Appraisers in Colorado.

Saks Galleries, she said, has roots in Western Art established by her grandparents, European immigrants.

“My grandfather’s first large collection in Colorado was a group of Western paintings that he was entrusted to sell. We have seen the shifts locally and nationally over the last 75 years,” said Saks, who over the past 20 years has appraised and brokered some of the largest collections locally and across the nation.

“A BROADER DEFINITION OF WHAT WESTERN ART CAN BE”

Asked about changes in the Western art market, Saks said: “The biggest shift has been the expansion of the audience. For many years, the market was driven by a relatively defined group of collectors. But today we’re seeing strong interest from a younger and more diverse clientele. There is also a greater institutional presence — museums are actively re-examining the genre — and that has encouraged a broader definition of what Western art can be.

“At the same time, the historic masters remain extremely important and continue to anchor the market,” Saks added. “Viewers’ interest in Western art reflects the values they hold and the views they cherish.”

Saks noted that she views art “with a lens for cultural context, material and historical continuity.”

Asked how Western art subject matter or the genre in general has changed, she said: “In some cases, Western art has moved from a primarily narrative tradition into something much more experiential and personal. Earlier work often focused on defining moments in Western history. Contemporary artists are just as engaged with the land and the idea of the West, but they approach it through atmosphere, light, and sometimes abstraction.”

Madden Gallery’s “Beyond the Western Horizon” intentionally includes artists working both in traditional and contemporary Western art.

TRADITIONAL WESTERN ART VS. CONTEMPORARY WESTERN ART

“For me the distinction isn’t about style as much as it is about context,” Saks said. “Traditional Western art is often rooted in storytelling and historic subject matter, while contemporary Western art tends to be more interpretive — it can be observational, abstract, or conceptual while still being grounded in place. Both are part of the same continuum, and most of what we see falls somewhere on the spectrum.”

For Madden Leitner and for Saks, the recognition of Denver’s art scene ties back to Colorado’s landscapes and light, but also to the camaraderie among visual artists. A number of the painters in Madden Gallery’s show participate in the Wednesday Night Painters group that meets at Sprick’s studio. Sprick and Chaudhuri are buddies who have painted around Colorado and worldwide: In Europe, India and Mexico. Another case in point: Laugesen and Eichelberg, both formerly affiliated with MOA, enjoy a close friendship.

DENVER’S SUPPORTIVE ARTS ENVIRONMENT YIELDS CREATIVE SYNERGY

“What makes Denver unique is that this wasn’t just an academic structure based at the Art Students League; it’s the sense of community. Denver offers an extraordinary combination of access to landscape and an active, supportive collector base. Just as important is the sense of community — artists here work together, critique together, and exhibit together,” said Saks. “The weekly painting groups, the mentorship and the accessibility of serious training created an environment where representational painting could evolve in a very contemporary way.”

IF YOU GO

Opening reception for “Beyond the Western Horizon” is from 5 to 8 p.m. on March 19, at Madden Gallery, 6363 S. Fiddlers Green Circle, Suite 110, Greenwood Village, CO 80111. Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and live music. Western attire encouraged. Admission is free yet requires tickets available at moaonline.org/beyond. Most of the exhibit’s artworks are for sale. For the duration of the show, which closes July 31, Madden Gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

In Denver’s Cherry Creek North, Saks Galleries, 3019 E. 2nd Ave., 80206 opens “In Good Company” on May 1. It’s a group show featuring Anna Rose Bain, Raj Chaudhuri, Crystal DeSpain, Ann Gargotto, Paul Heaston, Quang Ho, Andrea Kemp, Emily Olson, Elizabeth Rouland, Daniel Sprick, Jen Starling and Timothy Standring. Bekka Saks wrote: “For decades, a group of artists have gathered on Wednesday nights to paint side-by-side. What began as shared practice became shared history — a place of encouragement, challenge, and growth. ‘In Good Company’ celebrates the quiet power of long-term creative relationships and the work that emerges when artists return, week after week, to make art together.”

Colleen Smith, a longtime Denver-based arts writer and a regular contributor to The Denver Gazette, helped round up Colorado artists for “Beyond the Western Horizon.”