Works by modernist Western painter Theodore Waddell are paired with those of his former teacher Isabelle Johnson in a new exhibit called The Student & The Teacher, on view Oct. 27 through Feb. 5 at the Wildling Museum of Art & Nature in Solvang.
The paintings share many of the same subjects: Montana landscapes, livestock on the range, trees and plant life — and the teacher’s influence is evident. But the works also offer a view of how the student has shaped his own vision in the intervening years.
An opening reception at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, is free and open to the public, and includes refreshments and readings of poetry created in response to the show.
Also opening that date, in the second floor Valley Oak Gallery, is Overview: Aerial Photography of Bill Dewey featuring some two dozen images of natural features of the tri-counties area taken from aircraft. It is on view through January. Dewey will attend the opening reception.
The Waddell and Johnson exhibit is co-curated by the Yellowstone Art Museum (YAM) in Billings, Mont., which holds Johnson’s studio collection, and the Wildling Museum. Seventeen of Johnson’s paintings are included, on loan from YAM, and 26 works by Waddell, all on loan from the artist.
The Wildling previously exhibited a painting by Waddell (born 1941) as part of its 2015 Wild Horses exhibit.
“It was a very different piece for us to hang, given how modern it was,” said Stacey Otte-Demangate, the Wildling’s executive director, who curated that show. “But the texture, colors and spirit of it really captured people’s imaginations.
“Given that, I started dreaming about a bigger showing of Waddell’s works here. Once we learned how much he respected his early teacher and what an influence she was, we knew that would make for a very special exhibition.”
Waddell is celebrated for his Western landscapes, often of range animals roaming the plains of his native Eastern Montana. He utilizes different approaches, styles and techniques, and his works can be brushed, knifed, dripped, jotted down, thickly textured, or abstract.
He’s been honored at the White House, featured in countless exhibits; received the Governor’s Arts Award from the Montana Arts Council; exhibited in U.S. embassies across the world; and is included in permanent collections of the Denver Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and National Museum of Wildlife Art.
His new book, My Montana, features paintings and sculptures from 1959-2016, and is for sale in the Wildling’s Gift Shop. He is also the author of a series of children’s books featuring a Bernese mountain dog named Tucker.
“I tell people that I’m a Western artist in that the subject matter that I do has tied me to Western art,” said Waddell. “I’m painting a contemporary slice of the West. I’m living what I paint.”
A range of Waddell’s work will be in the exhibition from large-scale, thickly-painted canvases to a small lithograph of a horse expressed in just a few lines. Several of his iconic Montana landscapes are represented, as are lesser-seen works such as those from Yosemite National Park.
Isabelle Johnson (1901-92) introduced modernism to Waddell at Eastern Montana College while he was her student in the late 1950s. Considered a maverick at the time for breaking away from the prevailing realism in Western art, Johnson influenced a generation of painters.
Waddell has said she provided “an important framework for the rest of us to follow … I don’t think there is any way to overestimate the influence of Isabelle on all of us, including artists like Edith Freeman and Jim Reineking.”
Her pieces in this show were painted in the 1950s to the early 1970s with one exception, a pre-modernist landscape from 1935. Subjects include wildflowers, willows, cattle, sheep, and Western scenery, which are also present in Waddell’s works.
Johnson taught at EMC, now Montana State University Billings, from 1949-61, and served as chair of the Art Department. She died in 1992 at the age of 91, still painting and writing at her family ranch near Absarokee, Mont.
She left her entire studio collection to YAM, which mounted the exhibit A Lonely Business: Isabelle Johnson’s Montana in 2015. A related book was published and is for sale in the Wildling’s Gift Shop.
“The works by two of Montana’s shining stars come together in the Wilding Museum’s exhibition,” said Bob Durden, YAM senior curator and this exhibit’s co-curator. “We are so pleased to make Isabelle Johnson’s work available to this exhibition.
“We hope the people of California will be as inspired as we are by the work of these two Montana treasures.”
Dewey has been photographing the California landscape since taking up the camera in the early 1970s. He has had his private pilot’s license since 1981 and bases his aerial photography excursions out of Santa Barbara Airport.
This show features more than 20 prints of the tri-counties area (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura) taken from the air.
At least three-quarters of the photographs are recent works which have never been exhibited before, including reflection of an orange sun through the smoke from the Whittier Fire, a view of last spring’s super bloom of wildflowers at the Carrizo Plain, and winter storm clouds over Rincon Point. Wildling executive director Stacey Otte-Demangate curated this show.
“This region encompasses so many different landforms and ecosystems, with varied patterns, shapes, and colors,” says Dewey. “But the wild and beautiful tri-counties also meld together, which you can see clearly as a pilot.”
A native of San Diego County, Dewey attended Brooks Institute of Photography, the University of California at Davis, and Rochester Institute of Technology. He has had a photography studio in Santa Barbara for more than 30 years and is a member of Santa Barbara’s Oak Group.
His work can be found in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum of Ventura County, Carnegie Museum of Oxnard, Santa Cruz Island Foundation, and University of California at Santa Barbara, among others, as well as those of many private individuals. Dewey has been published extensively, and his work is represented by Marcia Burtt Gallery.
The Wildling Museum is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends (closed on Tuesdays). For more information, to volunteer and/or join as a member, visit www.wildlingmuseum.org.
— Katie Pearson for the Wildling Museum.