Camp at the Cougar’s Den, an oil by Howard Terpning, took the Patron’s Choice Award at the Masters of the American West show.

Caught in the Open is the title of this oil by John Moyers. The Santa Fe-based artist won the Kieckhefer Award (Best of Show) for this entry in the Cowboy Artists of America’s Exhibition and Sale. These award-winning works for the past year topped sales that, well, keep on topping previous sales.

This writing desk, called Take Me For a Ride, was by Tom Dahlke and won the Switchback Ranch Purchase Award.

No End in Sight
By Jesse Mullins, Jr.

Los Angeles: record-setting sales. Oklahoma City: record sales. Cody, Wyo.: record sales. Like a broken record, the news each year is getting to be… well, broken records—of high sales figures, that is, in new Western art.

Here’s to those who held onto their holdings when the going was rough. Though each year brings ever-higher sales reports, such was not always so for a number of years in the 1990s, and in the late 1980s one would have thought that the Western art business had struck the tent and quit the country, given its dismal sales. So for those collectors out there who stayed true believers, never doubting, this is their vindication.

The year began with the biggest single jump taken anywhere. At the Masters of the American West, held at Los Angeles’ Autry National Center on Feb. 5, art sales grossed some $2.1 million, up from $1.6 million in 2004. This year’s sale is set for the first weekend in February, as always.

With June came the annual Prix de West Invitational Art Show and Sale, held as usual at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The Prix de West saw $2.6 million in art sales, a record performance.

At the Buffalo Bill Art Show, held in Cody, Wyo., Sept. 23-24, sales totaled $906,000, markedly higher than the previous year’s record of $724,000.

Most recently, the Cowboy Artists of America Sale and Exhibition held its 40th annual event, realizing $2.3 million in total sales. With their numbers currently down to 23 active members, the sales figures are all the more impressive.

Shown on these pages are some representative works from what was a banner year in Western art. Every work shown was a winner in some category or other at its respective sale. For more information on the sales highlighted here, visit the following sites: www.autrynationalcenter.org, www.nationalcowboymuseum.org, www.buffalobillartsale.com, and www.phxart.org.

Captivated by Cody
By Chase Reynolds Ewald

Western High Style is alive and well, as the 13th Annual Western Design Conference so exhilaratingly exhibits.

Set-up day this past September at the 2005 Western Design Conference was the usual scene: Exhibitors pulled up outside the Riley Arena, a rec center perched on a bluff overlooking the town of Cody, Wyo. They emerged from their dust-covered vans and pickup trucks—having driven from Boise, Bozeman, Kentucky, New York, New Mexico—and started unloading their work.

By the following morning, the bubble wrap and hand trucks had been stored out of sight, the artisans had gone and scrubbed, and the room had been transformed from functionally painted cinderblock to an exhilarating Western experience. The 22,000-foot space was filled with furniture and decorative items exhibited on pedestals, and lined with decorated booths, some as fully furnished Western roomscapes, some with racks of handmade leather and fur clothing or shelves of colorful hand-stitched cowboy boots. The room was full yet never felt crowded; everywhere one looked there was a unique sight: a 1,000-pound bed of twisted juniper, delicate jewelry of sterling silver embedded with precious stones, traditional Plains Indian “wearing robes” with hand-painted designs on buffalo hides.

From gnarled rustic and updated-but-traditional Western to streamlined contemporary, the Western Design Conference, now in its 13th year, continues to exhibit the many faces of Western design today. For the 2,000 aficionados who come to view the exhibit, talk to the artisans, and watch the dynamic fashion show that kicks off the four-day conference, these works by 100 juried participants, plus 20 additional “Marketplace” exhibitors, represent the pinnacle of Western design...

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