Sophie Sheppard appearance highlights famous Western paintings and drawings at OXS May 3
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Mon, 05/02/2016 - 11:33am
Event Date:
May 3, 2016 - 5:00pm Sophie Sheppard, artist and daughter of the noted Nevada artist and educator Craig Sheppard will join exhibit curator Jim McCormick to discuss the elder Sheppard's impact on the arts in Nevada at a free public reception and discussion from 5 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 3 in Carson City. The discussion of “A Brushwork Roundup: Western Paintings and Drawings by Craig Sheppard” begins at 6 p.m.
A native of southwestern Oklahoma and former bronco rider in Madison Square Garden, Craig Sheppard is remembered as a prime mover in Northern Nevada’s cultural community in the years following World War II. He arrived at the University of Nevada in 1947 with the savvy of a seasoned cowboy and the experience necessary to teach most all courses in the art department he had been charged with rebuilding.
Sheppard was not a one-dimensional painter. Throughout his long career, the artist constantly reinvented himself. The one subject he returned to—even when he worked in France, Norway or other parts of Europe — was the horse and rider, and variations on that theme. The exhibit features works that reveal Sheppard’s indebtedness to Picasso and the Surrealists.
His late night painting marathons while living in Norway produced hundreds of sumi drawings of horses and riders, images that were more Eastern than Western, the curators say.
Rather than proposing “A Brushwork Roundup: Western Paintings and Drawings by Craig Sheppard” as a cross-section of the artist’s career, McCormick and co-curator Fred Reid have designed an exhibition that focuses on Sheppard’s abiding fascination with horses.
Viewers can expect to be challenged by Sheppard’s variations on the theme of horse and rider. The artist reached back to earlier times in Nevada when it was the least urban of all the states. Today the exhibit will resonate with those who venture beyond urban limits and encounter still existent ranches, cowboys and wild horses on Nevada’s rangeland.
The exhibit is part of the Nevada Touring Initiative–Traveling Exhibition Program and appears at the Nevada Arts Council’s OXS Gallery in Carson City through May 13. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nevada State Legislature. The Nevada Arts Council is a division of the Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs. NAC’s OXS Gallery is at 716 N. Carson St., Suite A, in Carson City, and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free.
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