Review of Heart of the West: New Painting and Sculpture of the American West Edited by Laura Caruso, with essays by James H. Nottage, Ann Scarlett Daley, Gordon McConnell, and Mindy A. Besaw

Authors

Monica Kjellman-Chapin, Emporia State University

Date of this Version

2010

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 30:1 (Winter 2010)

Comments

Copyright 2013 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

Since the valorization of abstraction beginning at midcentury, Western realist art has suffered from the sense that it is too regional, nostalgic, conventional, and populist to be considered a significant and relevant contribution to the contemporary American pictorial tradition. Richly illustrated and drawing upon the resources of the Denver Art Museum's Institute of Western American Art, as well as an exhibition of drawings and sculptures by George Carlson, Heart of the West attempts to reposition contemporary Western realist art and situate this work as an important and persistent contribution to American art. In addition to an introduction by the director of the Institute of Western American Art, four essays limn the continuities and differences within Western art, outline the importance of the Contemporary Realism Group, discuss in detail the work of Carlson, and consider the notion of the artist as explorer.