William Berra was born in York, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children.  His interest in art started in grade school and continued to thrive through high school. Rather than following the usual course of study at the public high school, Berra was fortunate enough to attend the York Academy his junior and senior years.  He then attended the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts in Baltimore, where he experimented briefly with abstract expressionism and non-objective painting.  He discontinued his course of study at the Institute to follow a path of his own choosing, working in a more traditional manner and en plein air.  Berra prides himself on being self-taught and takes satisfaction in having cultivated his own style of painting. 

Berra is greatly inspired by his surroundings and enjoys painting on location. When he paints, he begins by visualizing the composition.  As the work evolves, it becomes a composite of visual stimuli, memory and experience.

The greatest influence on Berra’s approach to painting is the work of the Macchiaioli, a group of 19th century Italian painters. While the Macchiaioli held many of the same concepts as did the French impressionists, they were not as scientific in their approach to painting.

Berra’s paintings have been exhibited extensively in the United States and are represented in private and public collections around the world, including those in Taiwan, Spain, and the U.S. State Department.

The female forms that Felipe Castañeda creates out of marble, onyx, and bronze embody both the traditional and modern sensibilities of Mexico. Forms of motherhood and fertility evoking the pre-Columbian culture are coupled with an abstract, stylized interpretation of sensuality that is universal in its depiction of female beauty. Castañeda transforms his subjects’ contemplative expressions and simple gestures into noble artistic expressions.

Castañeda was born in La Paloma in the state of Michoacán, an area rich in pre-Columbian artifacts. As a young man he made his way to Mexico City in order to participate in the country’s more contemporary artistic culture. In 1958 he entered La Esmeralda Painting and Sculpture Academy of the National Institute of Fine Arts and began to develop a distinctive style in his approach to sculpture. He finished his studies in 1963 and worked hard to achieve his first major one-man show in 1970.

Castañeda has exhibited and been recognized in his native Mexico and around the world. His commissioned public sculptures are placed in a number of Mexican cities as well as in Palm Springs, California. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Art History in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, among many others. Honors, including one from UNICEF in 1980, from Israel in 1996, and from the International Academy of Modern Art in Rome in 1998 have been bestowed upon him.

Reflecting on his life experience, Castañeda still marvels at the mysteries of an artist’s creation: “I still consider it a kind of miracle that forms almost identical to human beings are born out of a rock – and in some cases, the only thing lacking for them to be alive is for them to move of their own accord and speak.”

Although a Santa Fe art colony was not established until 1921, the Santa Fe fine art tradition took root simultaneously with that of Taos.  Beginning with the arrival of Carlos Vierra in 1904, artists were drawn to Santa Fe for largely the same reasons as they were to Santa Fe’s more artistically acclaimed neighbor to the north.  Before World War I, Vierra was joined by Kenneth Chapman, Olive Rush, Gerald Cassidy, Paul Burlin and, in 1913, by the New York portraitist Orrin Sheldon Parsons.

Once in New Mexico, Parsons found the terrain of New Mexico irresistible.  In fact the impact of the dry, pure air and bare landscape was sufficiently strong to change Parsons’ entire style.  Parsons gave up portraiture and never again returned to figure painting.  His entire focus became the skies, mountains, and soft, pliable adobe architecture of Northern New Mexico.  He rendered the contours of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with a soft brush and nearly pastel earth tones.  The only intrusions into this scheme were the extreme, sharp tones of red and yellow needed to capture New Mexico in October.

Parsons quickly became a major force in the burgeoning Santa Fe art scene.  When the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art was constructed in 1917, Parsons became its first director.  He regularly showed his work in the nearby Palace of the Governors galleries alongside that of the many fine artists who spent time in Santa Fe.

Parsons’ career spanned an era.  He was born in the same year as Irving Couse, a charter member of the Taos Society of Artists, one year after the end of the Civil War.  At his death in September of 1943, abstract expressionism was just beginning in New York City.  Through most of these decades Parsons’ style however remained placid, serene, settled and calm, just as he had found the landscape when he first reached New Mexico.

Kang Cho, born in Seoul, South Korea, moved to Chicago as a teenager in 1969. Though Cho displayed a talent for painting from an early age, art was not considered a proper profession in South Korea, and he anticipated training as an engineer or scientist. However, Cho’s schoolteachers in America noticed that the athletic and intelligent boy was an exceptional artist. He received a full scholarship to the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Cho moved to Denver in 1976, thanks to the encouragement and support of his friend and mentor, painter Bill Sharer. Cho became active in the Denver art community, and he credits the group for influencing his early convictions about art. Artist Ned Jacob, in particular, helped Cho refine his drawing and color techniques. Cho was fortunate in his early career, receiving immediate attention from galleries and collectors. His determination, discipline and dedication to his work led to his longterm success.

Cho’s work has received many awards, including the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Grant International Competition and the Anna Lee Stacey Scholarship Grant National Competition. He paints a wide range subjects – moments in nature and expressions of the human form – with a focus on painting what he sees. Today, Cho lives and paints in Santa Fe, capturing the myriad colors and subtle light of New Mexico.

Dan Ostermiller was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the son of a famed taxidermist. He decided early in his life to forego working in the family business for a more flexible form of self- expression.  However, the experience he had gained under his father’s tutelage influenced Ostermiller’s career and was ultimately responsible for his interest in becoming a sculptor of animals as well as for his complete understanding of animal form.

Ostermiller has enlarged the scope of his knowledge of wildlife with expeditions to Alaska, Africa and all corners of the West. Ostermiller’s sculpture conveys a mood and an emotion. Each bronze engages the viewer, encouraging the touch of a hand and inviting further contemplation. “If I have a trademark, it’s the character I put in pieces.  I incorporate, I hope, strong design. I give people something they can relate to and a good piece of sculpture.”

Since his first show in 1980, Ostermiller has rapidly achieved professional and public recognition.  In 2003, he became president of the National Sculpture Society.  His sculpture has won numerous awards and honors and has been included in exhibitions and one-person shows around the country. Included in the noteworthy list is the annual Society of Animal Artists exhibition; the annual National Sculpture Society exhibition; the Eiteljorg Invitational at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Fleischer Museum’s 1994 retrospective exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, recognizing Ostermiller for his exceptional talent and numerous accomplishments.

Clark Hulings’ tranquil compositions reflect the talent and experience of one of the nation’s most respected painters.  Hulings captures his subject with impeccable technique; his vibrant paintings glow with remarkable light, color and texture.

As a young child, Hulings lived in Spain.  His experiences in that colorful country continue to influence his work, particularly his choice of subject matter. Hulings has traveled in Egypt, Morocco and Mexico, as well as throughout Europe. His preference for painting the rustic and provincial scenes of everyday life is apparent in his beautiful interpretations of the open-air markets, farms and countryside. Hulings spends several months a year traveling and painting, always finding beauty in the simple parts of people’s lives.                   

Hulings studied with Sigismund Ivanowski and with George Bridgmond at the Art Students League in New York. During this time he began painting delicate still lifes and found a steady demand for his portraiture.  After a successful career in illustration, Hulings eventually settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In addition to receiving the coveted Prix de West from The National Academy of Western Art in Oklahoma City in 1973, Hulings has also received three silver and two gold medals from subsequent NAWA competitions.  In 1976 he was given a one-person show at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and was presented with the Hall’s Trustees’ Gold Medal for his distinguished contribution to art in the U.S.

Nedra Matteucci Galleries began to represent Clark Hulings in 1989 with an exhibition of 40 field sketches.  In 1999 the gallery held an unprecedented one-person show of some thirty-five Hulings paintings.  Since then the gallery has proudly showed the work of this remarkable artist on a permanent basis.

Known best for his sleek depictions of Native Americans in bronze and his modernist style, Allan Houser is among the most acclaimed twentieth-century sculptors of the Southwest. He was a respected teacher and artist considered by many as the patriarch of contemporary Native American sculptors.

Of Chiricahua Apache descent, Allan Houser (originally Haozous) grew up in a world of farming and ranching, rich with the Apache heritage of his people as taught through the songs and stories of his father. Encouraged by his father to obtain a formal education, Houser studied art, specifically painting, at the Santa Fe Indian Art School with Dorothy Dunn.

His paintings, which were infused with his Native American background, earned him national recognition. In 1939 Houser produced murals for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, and the New York World’s Fair, which led to his work as a WPA muralist. He soon after began working in the sculptural medium, following the suggestion of his muralist mentor, Olle Nordmark, His first public sculptural work was a 1948 commission from the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas.

From the early 1950s until his retirement from academic life in 1975, Houser taught at various institutions in the Southwest; his first solo exhibition was presented at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

Houser’s work can be found at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and in numerous major museum collections throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Additionally, Houser’s Offering of the Sacred Pipe  is on display at United States Mission to the United Nations in New York City.

Dan Ostermiller was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the son of a famed taxidermist. He decided early in his life to forego working in the family business for a more flexible form of self- expression.  However, the experience he had gained under his father’s tutelage influenced Ostermiller’s career and was ultimately responsible for his interest in becoming a sculptor of animals as well as for his complete understanding of animal form.

Ostermiller has enlarged the scope of his knowledge of wildlife with expeditions to Alaska, Africa and all corners of the West. Ostermiller’s sculpture conveys a mood and an emotion. Each bronze engages the viewer, encouraging the touch of a hand and inviting further contemplation. “If I have a trademark, it’s the character I put in pieces.  I incorporate, I hope, strong design. I give people something they can relate to and a good piece of sculpture.”

Since his first show in 1980, Ostermiller has rapidly achieved professional and public recognition.  In 2003, he became president of the National Sculpture Society.  His sculpture has won numerous awards and honors and has been included in exhibitions and one-person shows around the country. Included in the noteworthy list is the annual Society of Animal Artists exhibition; the annual National Sculpture Society exhibition; the Eiteljorg Invitational at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Fleischer Museum’s 1994 retrospective exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, recognizing Ostermiller for his exceptional talent and numerous accomplishments.

Gary Niblett was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, a town located in the middle of vast ranch lands where familiarity with cowboys and cattle are a part of every child’s heritage.  He revealed his artistic talents at an early age by painting commissioned portraits of the local ranchers’ horses.  In 1963 after attending Eastern New Mexico University, Niblett moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the Art Center College of Design.  In order to finance his studies, Niblett took a job as a background artist with the Hanna-Barbera animation studios.  He developed his skills and knowledge of lighting and color as well as design and composition.  After eight years he left the studios to pursue a career as an artist.

Niblett’s distinctive style has grown out of his fondness for the Western way of life, especially that of the cowboy. As a boy, Niblett helped round up and brand cattle on ranches.  He gained a respect for and working knowledge of life on the range, which is reflected in his vivid narratives of the West.

At thirty-three, Niblett became the youngest member ever elected to the prestigious art organization, the Cowboy Artists of America.  This same organization awarded Niblett the silver medal for oil painting in 1977 and the gold medal for watercolor in 1991.  He is also a member of the Santa Fe Watercolor Society and the National Academy of Western Artists (now Pre de West).  In 1990 Niblett was honored by being chosen the Distinguished Calendar Artist by New Mexico Magazine.

Niblett’s paintings have been exhibited extensively in the United States, England, France, Germany, Japan and at the 1981 American Western Art Exhibition in Beijing, China.

Oscar E. Berninghaus began his career in his native St. Louis as a commercial lithographer.  In 1899, as a reward for his hard work in taking night classes at Washington University and at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, he was given a month’s paid vacation and provided with free passage to the West by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.  While visiting Taos, Berninghaus met Bert Phillips, who became a lifelong friend, and was inspired to join the new Taos artist colony.

Berninghaus established a seasonal rhythm based on his family’s needs, spending winters in St. Louis pursuing a successful career as a commercial artist and summers in Taos painting the Native Americans, their horses and the landscape.  These candid paintings of Taos earned him great respect among the other artists.  Though residing in St. Louis, he became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915 and sent his paintings on tour with their traveling exhibitions.  Successful accounts, especially Anheuser-Busch, allowed him to settle in Taos permanently in 1925.

Berninghaus received the 1924 Ranger Fund Prize and the 1926 Second Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design. He also belonged to the National Society of Mural Painters and the Salmagundi Club. His beautifully rendered paintings offer a vision of Taos of unusual freshness and sincerity.