Page 81 - 2015 Russell Catalogue

2015 Heritage Award2015 Heritage Award Recipient Artistic AchievementHoward TerpningThe C.M. Russell Museum is pleased to honor Howard Terpning with the first C.M. Russell Museum Heritage Award for artistic achievement. Terpning has devoted his professional life to creating Western art in the finest tradition of Charles Marion Russell.Since the beginning of his career in the fine arts in the 1970s to the present day, the vividness and breadth of Terpning’s artistic production have been astonishing. His paintings have been exhibited all across the United States and internationally, including in China and France, and have been acquired by discriminating collectors and museums worldwide.Terpning’s work has been the subject of books, including The Art of Howard Terpning (1992), Howard Terpning: Spirit of the Plains People (2001), and most recently, Terpning: Tribute to the Plains People (2012), and of a documentary film, Howard Terpning, Portrait of a Storyteller (2012).The world of Western art has recognized the quality of Terpning’s work with innumerable awards, including multiple awards by the Cowboy Artists of America, the Prix de West, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, the National Academy of Western Art, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, the Briscoe Art Museum, and the Gilcrease Museum.Fred A. Myers, director of the Gilcrease Museum from 1972 until 1991, said, “Howard Terpning is simply the best and best-known artist doing Western subjects at this point....He is among a very small group of painters of the West in the late twentieth century whose art will still be hanging in museums and appreciated a hundred years from now.”Terpning’s paintings of Native Americans strike a particular chord with the C.M. Russell Museum. Like Terpning, Charlie was a lifelong student of Native American life, and a considerable portion of his oeuvre was devoted to depicting Native peoples and their traditions.HOWARD TERPNING, Among the Spirits of the Long Ago PeopleReturn to Table of Contents