Red & White Gallery Showcases Three Major Western Artists, Opening Saturday

“Painting the West” opens this Saturday from 3-6 p.m. at the Red & White Gallery on Fayetteville’s Square. The exhibit features three great artists who create Western images in their own unique styles. Mark Kohler and Stephen Henry, who have had very successful shows at the Red & White before, are showing new work. And Don Weller of Utah is showing his oils and watercolors at the Red & White Gallery for the first time.

Don Weller

As a boy Don Weller drew horses and cowboys when he wasn’t out exploring on his horse along the Palouse River or over the rolling hills that surrounded his childhood home near Pullman, Washington. Graduating from Washington State University with a degree in Fine Art, he moved to LosAngeles where he spent decades creating graphic design and illustration for clients such as Time Magazine, The National Football League, the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and the United States Post Office (which commissioned five stamps). Besides being a working illustrator and designer, he taught school for three years at UCLA and eleven years at the Art Center School in Pasadena, California.

After a successful LA career, he moved to Utah where he and his wife Cha Cha live with their border collie, two cats, and three horses who are bred to be cutting horses. Don spends his time creating western paintings and riding his cutting horses.

Recent awards include a 2020 Western Heritage Award from National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, a Lifetime Achievement award from the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators, and an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the San Francisco Academy of Art.

Mark Kohler

Known for his contemporary and translucent watercolor images of cowboys at work, Mark Kohler first earned a degree in illustration at Southwest Texas State University. As a full-time artist he has exhibited his work widely and has garnered commissions from national publications including Cowboys & Indians, Western Horseman, and American Cowboy, among others.

Mark has traveled far and wide in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, and California to visit real working cowboys. He strives to depict the independent spirit of the modern working cowboy with all the admiration he feels for his proud subjects. “I applaud the values and self-sufficiency of the working cowboy. Each painting becomes an opportunity to portray my subjects as they deserve to be, with dignity,” he says.

Kohler’s work has received much national attention. In 2001 and 2005, he was invited to hang his work at the Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball for President Bush in Washington, DC.

Stephen Henry

After spending the years 2003 to 2022 in Utah, native Texan Stephen Henry returned to Texas to paint and to teach Art at Brenham High School. Stephen’s family lived in the small town of Stoneburg, Texas, which is located on the edge of the Texas Prairie and the border of what is known as “The Comancheria.” The lore of the region, the stories and the working cowboys instilled a spirit of the West in him, along with the influence of his father, MH Henry, a master sign painter and a Western artist who was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.

“I’m painting what I know and what I love the most,” Stephen says. His work ranges from sweeping landscapes to working cowboys, and from oil on canvas to scratchboard. While a noted plein aire painter, this particular showing features works created in his Austin County studio, where lately he has been painting large, expressive acrylics of Western animals. “I want people to feel something when they look at my art,” he says.

Everyone is invited to meet the artists at the Gallery on Saturday from 3-6 p.m. “Painting the West” continues through Nov. 8. The work of the three artists can be seen online at www.redandwhitegalleryonline. com.