Morgan Weistling, Southwest Art, June 2002

B O B K U H N R E T R O S P E C T I V E I N W YO M I N G

SouthwestArt JUNE

2002

Wildlife Art flies in new directions

Cowboys in the West

by Richard D. Thomas Figurative painter Morgan Weistling

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Timeless Pleasures Morgan Weistling’s paintings of life in a simpler era have taken the art world by storm | By Molly Siple

M

WEISTLING HAS ENJOYED UNUSUALLY QUICK SUCCESS IN the world of fine art. Though he began painting full time just four years ago, his images of pioneer life have already earned top awards and generated a loyal following. He received the Patrons Choice Award at the 2000 Masters of the American West show; this year his work won the Trustee Purchase Award. And in 2001 he garnered both the Prix de West Award and the Buyers Choice Award at Oklahoma’s National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. At the tender age of 37, Weistling has paintings in the permanent collections of both institutions. His last three one-man shows all sold out on opening night. Collectors who can’t attend the exhibits sometimes e-mail him, offering to buy his paintings sight unseen.

ORGAN

PENNYWHISTLE, OIL, 12 X 9.

However, while Weistling’s fans are familiar with his work, there is a story behind his paintings that few have heard.

In part, the artist paints to fulfill his father’s dream of becoming an artist, a dream that never materialized.

As a young man, Howard Weistling had a talent for drawing, and life presented him with a unique opportunity to use this skill. During World War II he was captured and held in a German prison. In these dire circumstances, it occurred to him that he might cheer his fellow prisoners by creating a cartoon

strip. He began drawing his humorous characters on scraps of paper found on the prison grounds.

“My father’s ability to paint may even have saved his life,” says Weistling. Toward the end of the war, with the Russian army approaching, Howard managed to paint an American flag on his prison uniform. When the Russians entered the prison, they spotted the flag and he was spared from being shot.

When he returned from the war, Howard enrolled at Woodbury Art College in Los Angeles.

Here he met and married

SLEEPING SARAH, OIL, 18 X 30.

Morgan’s mother, Pat. Soon they had three children to raise, and Morgan’s father opted to become a gardener rather than an artist to insure a steady income. But he nurtured his love of art by teaching his young son.

To this day, Weistling has a keen sense of the privileges he has enjoyed because of his father’s efforts. On some level, each of his paintings is a way of saying “thank you” to his dad.

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rom the time Weistling was 19 months old, his father would sit him on his knee at night after work and teach him how to draw. Father and son bonded through drawing and spoke to each other with

pictures. With his background in drawing comic strips, Howard taught his son the importance of narrative. Says Weistling, “Art became a language for me.” To this day, narrative subject matter remains an integral part of his paintings.

Eventually Weistling completed all the assignments in his father’s books from the Famous Artists School correspondence course, even though by that time the school no longer existed.

“Everything one needs to know about good picture making is in there,” he insists. When Morgan was 15, his mother sought out an art school for her son. It was 1980, and he had no interest in the modern art being taught at Featured in

places like Otis College of Art & Design and California Institute of the Arts. Then Morgan’s mother happened upon a school that had just opened in a storefront in Reseda, CA. “When I saw the student work,” Morgan recalls, “my jaw dropped.” On the walls were beautiful charcoal drawings done from life by students studying with Fred Fixler.

Fixler, a retired illustrator, had studied under Frank Reilly at the Art Students League in New York, and this academic training was at the core of his teaching. Fixler put the eager Weistling through a rigorous training program, all centered around drawing. “Everything I do today in my art is still based

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WEISTLING •

PUMPKIN, OIL, 18 X 24.

on the principles he taught me,” says Weistling.

During his studies, Weistling worked part time at an art store.

One day a successful movie poster illustrator happened to come in, and Weistling took the opportunity to show him his student work. The next day, at age 19, he had a full-time job working for one of the largest poster agencies in the country. For the next 14 years Weistling enjoyed great success, producing posters for major motion pictures and portraying dozens of Hollywood luminaries. Generating a perfect likeness was one of his trademarks.

These years in illustration were like a second round of school, Weistling says. “The attention I give every detail of my paintings stems from the way art

directors would scrutinize my work,” he explains. But selfexpression, of course, wasn’t called for. In 1997, Weistling realized he needed to return to his artistic roots and started working from life again to help make the transition to fine art. His first paintings were so well received that he quickly left illustration and never looked back.

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ow that Weistling is his own taskmaster, he has a fresh set of objectives for his work. He emphasizes that he’s not trying to portray a specific period of American history. “There is a timeless quality to these simpler settings and dress that I want my paintings to embody,” he explains. He plans each setting

with great care, much the way he researched his images when designing posters. He lavishes time on selecting props and frequently hires a seamstress to custom-make costumes. He also makes sure he has the right model for each scene and often uses his daughter, Brittany, as well as strangers he spots in town.

Regardless of the subject matter, it’s often a single, specific element that catches Weistling’s eye. “I can’t be excited if I don’t see something special happening,” he says. In one painting it was a bucket full of flowers, for example, that captured his attention. He tries to give the viewer a variety of objects to look at and lead the eye from place to place using edges and line. To Weistling, edges are like notes, creating a melody. He

enjoys painting women and children not because these subjects are popular but because their softer, rounder bodies afford him a variety of edges to paint.

He also loves color harmonies. When he starts a painting, he will give in to one harmony of color, such as the red of a girl’s dress in CRIMSON. He then relates all other colors to that one hue. But his biggest challenges, he says, are creating beautiful shapes and rendering figures accurately. “I am trying to paint poems, not novels. I try to figure out how little I need to paint and still have you know what the painting is about,” Weistling says. “But this is very hard for me to do. I have so much to say!”

Weistling’s plans for the future include more traveling and painting. Rather than working only in the cool north light of his studio, he says he’s looking forward to painting outdoors where nature provides all sorts of lighting effects.

Whatever the results, his next round of paintings will be eagerly awaited. And given his current success, it appears certain that Weistling will be living his dream— and his father’s—for a long time to come. ❏ Molly Siple is a freelance writer in California.

WEISTLING IS REPRESENTED T RAILSIDE G ALLERIES , S COTTSDALE , AZ, AND JACKSON, WY. BY

WALLFLOWER, OIL, 30 X 15.

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