Winter | Spring 2010
From Cowboy to Contemporary
The Works of Morgan Weistling Grandmother Weavers in Navajo Country In Full Bloom: California’s Filoli Gardens Cowboy Artist Ace Powell
plus:
Wanderings: Phoenix-Scottsdale RMT Architects Painter Clyde Aspevig
Indian Stories | Oil | 40 x 46 inches
With awards and accolades that vastly outnumber his 46 years, Morgan Weistling paints in pursuit of truth
Written by
Michael Scott-Blair
painting haunts Morgan Weistling. It’s not on canvas. It’s pacing back and forth across his mind and has been there for 10 years. “I am frightened to bring it to the front because I know how incredibly painful it will be to pull it into reality, but I know that one day I must,” says Weistling in his Canyon Country studio, just north of Los Angeles. 102 WA
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The scene is typical Weistling (pronounced Whystling)
“I know some of my collectors would like me to do muse-
— an extremely powerful and moving portrayal of early
um-style paintings of great historical moments — Kit Carson
Americana, in this case, the Civil War. It’s not an epic scene.
riding at the head of the wagon train,” says Weistling. “But
“I don’t do epics. I do everyday people and their lives,” says
my eye is always drawn to the little girl in the fourth wagon
Weistling.
who is busy making soap to help everyday life get along.”
In his mind, there is a young girl, about 16 years old,
Some artists set out with a general idea of what they
a seamstress who is patching a soldier’s uniform. Behind
are going to paint and adjust it along the way. Not so with
him, other soldiers are waiting to get rips and tears in their
Weistling. A stickler for authenticity in every detail, he must
uniforms fixed. It’s a very rural background and there may
know exactly what elements will be included in the finished
be some other girls around. The whole setting is a wartime
work, down to the small embroidered fringe on the cuff of
battlefield scene and there is a stark contrast between the
each little girl’s dress.
girl, who has remained pristine, and the soldiers, who are covered in the grime of war.
“The research can be excruciating, extremely time consuming and frustrating as I search to be faithful to our
“I hang out with Civil War re-enactors and I go to their
forebears,” says Weistling. But to focus on the detail and
events looking for the elements of this painting. I see it
precision is to miss what Weistling is seeing. Life is made
clearly in my mind,” says Weistling. “To me, it is epic, but I
up of small snapshots, and through a masterful use of light,
like to keep it simple.”
Weistling is able to capture the very essence of each moment. Country Schoolhouse 1879 | Oil | 44 x 60 inches
Youthful vitality pours from First Dance, 1884,
ered wagon and listened each night to the
winner of the Artist’s Choice Award and the
kind of storyteller immortalized in the paint-
Patron’s Choice Award at the 2008 Masters of
ing. And there is the seemingly endless array
the American West at the Autry National Center
of portraits from old men to young children,
of the American West Museum in Glendale,
each capturing a moment of intimacy between
California. Similarly, The Quilting Bee, winner of the
Morgan Weistling
the subject and the viewer. It is a remarkable body of work for a man, only 46 years old,
same two awards at the Autry show in 2007
who spent 14 years as a commercial artist
(a rare achievement), hauntingly encapsulates
before venturing into fine art.
the industriousness of 19th-century women; and Indian
Weistling has just completed what will be a featured
Stories, winner of the 2008 Purchase Award at the Prix de
work for the 2010 Masters show at the Autry next month: an
West in Oklahoma City, reminds Weistling of the stories
1890s schoolroom. “It took me weeks to get up the nerve to
told to him by his grandmother, who came West in a cov-
dive into this thing. I said, ‘OK, I have to find a schoolhouse from about 1890 and
“I know some of my collectors would like me to do museum-style paintings of great historical moments — Kit Carson riding at the head of the wagon train,” says Weistling. “But my eye is always drawn to the little girl in the fourth wagon who is busy making soap to help everyday life get along.” First Dance, 1884 America | Oil | 30 x 50 inches
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put 14 children in there, a teacher, desks, wall decorations and all be in period!’ ” says Weistling. “lt’s not like
The Quilting Bee, 19th Century Americana | Oil | 44 x 64 inches
I take a camera shot and say, ‘Oh, I will do a painting of that.’
me sitting next to him, drawing. He loved comic strips at the
All this must first be created inside my own head and then
time when comic strip artists were king and I would copy
researched for accuracy — that’s what’s scary. I sometimes
whatever he drew.
want to use old, beaten-up stuff as props, but then remember
“He kept a diary every day from age 14 until the day he
that I have to show them before they sat around 100 years
died at 83. I have them all. They are brief and to the point. I
getting old. I am seeking to paint a truth that no longer
checked the day I was born to see if the earth moved: It says
exists, but make it truthful — it’s challenging.”
‘Pat had a boy today.’ That’s it! Pearl Harbor day records ‘Japs
Destiny decreed that Weistling would be an artist. His
attacked Pearl Harbor, went to movie.’ The next day — ‘I
parents met at art school in the Burbank area of Los Angeles,
enlisted.’ ” (Weistling Sr. became a navigator in the Army Air
“but they eloped and started a family so my father was never
Corps, was shot down on his first mission in a B-17 bomber
able to pursue his art dream. Instead, he started a gardening
and spent a year in the Stalag 1 prison camp in Germany
and landscaping business to support his family, but after 40
before being released in 1945.)
years broke his back and became a locksmith until he died five years ago.”
“I also have every one of those drawings we did together — every single one, and we did them each night after his
Both parents (his mother still paints “beautifully deco-
work, along with every sketch I have ever done on all my
rated dinner plates”) poured their love of art into a young
paintings,” says Weistling. “I have been bred to cherish his-
son who arrived late in their lives. “They told me that they
tory,” he says, adding quietly, “including my own.”
would sit me on a couch with a piece of art and I would be
However, Morgan does not get the only family spotlight
content to look at it for hours. At 19 months, my father had
at this year’s Autry show. His wife, Jo Ann (they also met in
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Grizzly | Brittany Weistling | Oil on Canvas Board | 9 x 12 inches Below left: Jo Ann Peralta, right: Brittany Weistling
Vineyard Girl | Jo Ann Peralta | Oil | 45x 26 inches
art school), who paints under the name of J. Peralta in honor of her grandmother, will have a piece in the same prestigious show. She has drawn casually all her life but with no thought
Spanish heritage, like her grandmother. Incidentally, she
of art as a career. Jo Ann was a travel agent in the early 1980s
hates to travel.
when another agent needed a drawing of two football players for a flyer.
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And right behind the talented mother and father is 14-year-old Brittany, already showing great promise in art,
“He was a graphic artist and when he saw my flyer,
sculpture and music. She recently sold five pieces of her
he suggested I check the Art Center College of Design in
work to buy a laptop computer and Morgan, who still has all
Pasadena. They said I needed a portfolio of 12 pieces and
his earlier pieces, says, “I compare my work at age 14 with
I had nothing to show them. I presented the portfolio two
hers — she’s better.” Brittany, who has been drawing since
weeks later and they gave me a full four-year scholarship,”
she was two years old, says that when she sees the enormous
says Jo Ann, whose paintings focus on working people of
effort and work her father puts into each piece, “I might
check out one of my other talents. It’s pretty intimidating to have two such incredibly gifted parents.” Weistling’s own career has been a series of quantum leaps. He was selling painting materials in an art store at age 19, and showed his work to a top Hollywood illustrator who was buying supplies. The next day he was employed by a leading film company and worked for every big film producer in Los Angeles for more than a decade. Encouraged by a friend, fellow artist Julio Pro, Weistling went to Scottsdale with a few unframed pieces he did while still doing movie posters, “to see what happens,” as Pro
family treasure
put it then. “We started at the top — Trailside Galleries,”
lost … and found In 1945, Morgan Weistling’s father was shot
String Beans | Morgan Weistling | Oil | 30 x 26 inches
down over Austria while serving as a navigator in a B-17 bomber. All eight crew members parachuted to safety and were imprisoned in the Stalag 1 prison camp in Germany. And from there, an intriguing story unfolds. Weistling Sr. was a frustrated artist who loved the comic strips of the 1940s and used to create strips of his own. To entertain the other prisoners, Weistling started a Western comic strip, drawing on the back of cigarette packs and any other scraps of paper he could find. Each segment made the rounds of the prison huts and back to him, where he kept them, and sent out the next segment. He collected 74 pages on those scraps of paper.
says Weistling, “and co-owner Maryvonne Leshe asked if I would sign for them to represent me right then. And, of course, I did.” “I remember,” Weistling recalls, “Maryvonne commented on the hands and feet in my paintings. She said most people hid them because they are hard to do, but I did them very well.” “That is very true, hands and feet are a defining feature of top artists,” says John Geraghty, noted art collector and a
But, as the Allies overran the camp and the Russians bulldozed everything
founding member of the Autry show. “You will see the same
in sight, all was lost — until last August. That’s when young Weistling received
thing in Howard Terpning’s work — his hands and feet are
an e-mail from a man in New York who said he believed he had a small book
exquisite, as are those of Mian Situ. In fact, in my mind,”
that might belong to the Weistling family — if interested, please call. “I was
Geraghty adds, “what Howard Terpning is to the Plains
on the phone in a nanosecond,” says Morgan.
Indians, and Mian Situ is to the Chinese-American experi-
Sure enough, it was the 74 pages of the comic strips, bound with a metal cover made from a tin can that had been beaten flat, and fastened with a nail for a hinge. Stamped in the cover with the nail, it reads, “A Western by H.G. Weistling.” Morgan explained. “A business partner of the New York man had absconded with a lot of company money and spent it all on Nazi stuff — four paintings
ence in this country, that is what Morgan Weistling is to the Americana of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” Praise does not come much higher than that. For 50 years, Michael Scott-Blair has been a writer and
by Adolf Hitler, the silverware from Hitler’s dining table, that kind of thing —
photographer for magazines and newspapers in the United
along with Dad’s little book. The New York man gave all the stuff to Holocaust
States, England and New Zealand. He was twice nominated
museums and the like, but, for some reason, he kept the little book. And he kept
for the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently was senior writer for
it for 20 years before deciding to try and find an owner. On Google, mine was
Wildlife Art Magazine. Born in London, England, he now lives
the first name that came up. And as you can see, now, 64 years later, Dad has a
with his wife, Rose Marie, in San Diego.
place in the art world.”
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