Clark Hulings (American, 1922-2011). Kaleidoscope. Oil on canvas. 29 x 46 inches (73.7 x 116.8 cm). Signed and dated low...

Description

Clark Hulings (American, 1922-2011)
Kaleidoscope
Oil on canvas
29 x 46 inches (73.7 x 116.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Hulings 1980 / ©

PROVENANCE:
Nedra Matteuci Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico;
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2000.

"I think of my paintings as slices of life."
-Clark Hulings, Art of the West Magazine, 2007


Due to his unique ability to capture the light, vivid colors, complex textures, and dappled shadows of the Southwest, Clark Hulings has been celebrated as a true modern master of the Western genre. Though his paintings do not feature cowboys or other predictably "Western" fare, his depictions of indigenous peoples in both the Southwest and also in Europe, notably France, Italy, and Spain, where he lived as a child and frequented as an adult, earned him international acclaim.

An artist whose oeuvre reflects his vast worldwide travels, Hulings was raised in a suburb of New York, but also spent part of his childhood in Louisiana and in Spain. As a boy, he was inspired by the works of Realist and Impressionist painters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early on, Hulings trained at the Art Students League and worked as a freelance illustrator in New York. But it was the attraction of the West, with its rustic locales and bucolic way of life, that would call him back to the world of fine art which he found so stimulating in his youth.

After working fifteen years as an illustrator, Hulings returned to New Mexico, where the brilliant sunlight reminded him of his early impressions of Spain, and became his artistic inspiration. Hulings' paintings began to highlight colorful native traditions and cultures -- everyday people who lived off the land, making their livelihood by farming and raising animals. The Mexican and Indian cultures of the Southwest provided the artist with an ample supply of subjects. Thus he began to paint regularly, holding his first exhibition in Santa Fe in 1945.

In 1965, Hulings made his New York gallery debut at The Grand Central Art Galleries. In 1972, he settled permanently in Santa Fe, and the following year, he was the first recipient of the Prix de West Award at the National Academy of Western Art. A multitude of exhibitions would follow, including a 1976 solo exhibition at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City. In 1978, a retrospective for the artist was held at the Museum of the Southwest, Midland, Texas, and a 1981 exhibition followed at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana.

The present work, fittingly titled Kaleidoscope, was painted in 1980, at the height of the artist's career. Indeed, the optical effects and perspective masterfully captured by the artist in this work replicate the nostalgic experience of peering through a lens directed toward the light, with jewel-toned shapes tumbling and swirling in a circular motion. In Kaleidoscope, Hulings' composition is dynamic and complex with its panoply of vibrant colors, graphic array of shapes, lifelike fruit and vegetables, and multitude of figures, each going about a different activity as if caught in a candid moment of everyday market life. Lively Mexican and European market scenes such as the present work are among Hulings' most celebrated signature subjects, and it goes without saying that Kaleidoscope is a masterwork of this genre.





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