Len Chmiel

Len Chmiel is considered by his peers to be a master of design and composition. For the highly respected Chmiel, each painting he creates is an expression of himself. He explains that he has a good idea of who he is at this point in his life. “I used to try to control everything, but now I allow my intuition to speak more. I try to stretch the truth of what the actual image is. I do paintings with recognizable subjects because I’m inspired by what I see; however, that is not my only intention.”

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Chmiel has had numerous sellout solo shows, and he is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the West. He has been featured in the periodicals American Artist, Business Week, Southwest Art, and Western Art Digest. His work is included in two books on oil painting and is represented in the collections of various museums and major corporations. In 2002, Chmiel’s painting Life Imitates Art received the Artists’ Choice Award at the Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale. This painting is now part of the permanent collection of the National Wildlife Museum in Jackson, Wyoming. In 2008, he won his second Artists’ Choice Award at the Coors National Western, and in 2009 he won the Best of Show award for his cumulative body of work at the Maynard Dixon Country art show in Mt. Carmel, Utah.

Chmiel and his bird dogs make their home in Hotchkiss, Colorado, where he paints, gardens, tends his vineyard and fruit trees, makes wine, and hunts.