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Howard Terpning
http://theautry.org/masters-of-the-american-west-2011/michael-stack http://theautry.org/masters-of-the-american-west-2011/richard-d-thomasHoward Terpning has tremendous respect for the Native American people who lived in the nineteenth century, portraying them as honestly and accurately as he can. He has close relations with living Native Americans and is invited to attend many of their ceremonies that are not generally open to the public.
He is considered by his peers and collectors one of the greatest of all painters of the American West.
Terpning spent more than twenty-five years as an illustrator after receiving his art education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and the American Academy of Art. He began to transition from a lucrative illustration career to fine art during the mid-1970s. He was invited to join the prestigious National Academy of Western Art and became a member of the Cowboy Artists of America in 1979. The awards he has received from these two institutions are too numerous to list.
Terpning has won many awards at the Autry National Center's Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale. He received the Thomas Moran Memorial Award for Painting in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2001. In 2005, his painting Camp at the Cougar’s Den was honored with both the Thomas Moran Memorial Award for Painting and the Patrons’ Choice Award. At the 2004 Masters, his painting The Force of Nature Humbles All Men received the Masters of the American West Purchase Award, and in 2000, Terpning was given the John J. Geraghty Award in recognition of his advancement of contemporary Western art.
In 2001, Greenwich Workshop Press published a book about his work titled Howard Terpning: Spirit of the Plains People, by Western historian Don Hedgpeth. Terpning and his wife, Marliese, reside in Tucson, Arizona.
Howard Terpning is represented by Settlers West Galleries Inc., Tucson, Arizona. Giclée reproductions of his work are available through Greenwich Workshop dealers.
artwork
Howard Terpning
Among the Spirits of the Long-Ago People, oil, 42 x 40 in. (Reserve price was $500,000. Sold for $900,100.)
2011 Thomas Moran Memorial Award for Painting Winner
Howard Terpning is known by the elders of the Blackfeet and Crow nations as the great storyteller of their people. His paintings never depict violence; instead, they portray the sensitive reverence he feels for the Native American people. Among the Long-Ago People is just such a painting. Petroglyphic carvings and paintings on the rock formation indicate that the visitors are in a spiritual place, blessed by the long-ago people. Numerous locations like this exist throughout Montana and Wyoming, always high on a mountain, close to the Great Spirit, with a spectacular view of Mother Earth. For centuries, Indian people have made the difficult journey to these sacred places to give thanks for their blessings and to pray for success in hunting and in battle. Today, they continue to visit these sacred places as their forebears did, leaving small pieces of trade cloth and handmade objects decorated with beads or feathers as gifts for the gods.
