Gilcrease Rendezvous with Curt Walters and Veryl Goodnight

Jodie and I traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma last weekend to attend the Gilcrease Museum's annual Rendezvous art show and sale.  Every year the Gilcrease selects two artists to present a major retrospective of their works and this year both artists were friends of ours so we couldn't miss the event.

The weekend started off with a lovely cocktail party at the beautiful home of Patricia Wheeler.  A line of severe thunderstorms were rolling across the country at the time and all eyes at the party were on the news channel awaiting word of either hail storms or tornadoes.  In fact, during the presentation by one of the museum personnel, tornado sirens were blaring in the background.  We just kept our eyes of the locals - no one ran for cover, so we just sat tight, if not somewhat nervously.  The temperature dropped 25 degrees that night and we didn't pack a single bit of warm clothing.  So we were just chilly for the next two days.

Curt conducting a tour of the exhibition

The first featured artist was Curt Walters, famed painter of the Grand Canyon.  The exhibit featured many of his stunning, large scale canyon canvases as well as many of his very accomplished paintings of plein aire scenes and international locales.

 

Fellow artists and art excursion traveling companions John and Terri Kelly Moyers came in from Santa Fe to show their support for their friend Curt.  On Friday morning, Curt gave a walking tour of the exhibition, talking about the background of each of his paintings.

Curt introducing noted artists Terri and John Moyers

Jodie and I with our friends and traveling companions
Bill and Ginny Springall beside one of their
paintings that was featured in Curt's exhibition

Curt with Dick and Vicki Vanhouse and their painting
they loaned to the exhibition

Charles and Jacquelyn Hill with the painting
they loaned for the exhibition

Friday afternoon, sculptor Veryl Goodnight gave a presentation in the auditorium, talking about the three major stages of her career.

One of the most touching stories in her presentation was that of trials and tribulations of rasing "Charlie" a newborn buffalo calf to a full grown bull.  The story is told in the book "A Buffalo In The House: The Extraordinary Story of Charlie and His Family available at Amazon.  And speaking of books, the weekend saw the release of Veryl's new book "No Turning Back: The Art of Veryl Goodnight" which is available through her website. (see below)

Veryl had more than 60 works on display including the monumental "A New Beginning".  The range of her work is simply astonishing and it includes figurative, animals, horses and buffalo in all shapes and sizes.


 

Veryl Goodnight and Jamie Bade (the model for this work)
beside "A New Beginning"

Friday evening was the time of the art sale.  Several of Curt's paintings and Veryl's sculptures were on sale by the draw box method (you put your number in the box and if they draw it out, you get the option to purchase the work at the stated price).

Every event has to have a little live western music with
slide guitar

Jodie & Curt

Kristine Russell with her newly acquired painting

Former Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell was
the model for this scuplture

One very special project of Veryl's is entitled "The Day the Wall Came Down" which depicts four horses charging over a piece of the torn down Berlin wall.  Two 14,000 pound monuments were created and one was installed at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M and the other was installed at the Allied Museum in Berlin, Germany.

Photo of the monumental sculpture "The Day the
Wall Came Down" in Berlin with the CIA Agency Seal
Medallion awarded to Veryl Goodnight and a machette
of the sculpture.

Brochure for the evening's sale

Curt and Tom hosted an after party on Friday night after the sale in the wine room at the Ambassador Hotel (hint: if you visit Tulsa, stay at the Ambassador - it is great).  We all joined together there for food, wine and fellowship.  It was great fun.

Paul and Liz Lokey

Veryl Goodnight and her husband Roger Brooks

Curt's partner Tom Dailey with Bill & Ginny Springall

Curt addresses the crowd

Jodie with Curt's sister Gerri

The Gilcrease is an incredible museum with one of the largest collections of western art in the world.  Created by legendary oilman Thomas Gilcrease, this museum (now operated by the University of Tulsa) houses some amazing western art.  Problem is that only a small portion can be on display at any point in time.  On Saturday, we were honored to be included in a special "behind the scenes tour" of the Gilcrease Museum's expansive archive of artifacts and art led by Dr. Robert Pickering and Linda Galbraith of the Gilcrease Museum.  While I was allowed to take photographs on the tour, I was asked not to publish any of the photographs on the web.  Sorry, but maybe I'll get permission to publish a few of them in the future.

I did put all of the rest of the photos up on the web for you to enjoy.  Sorry if some of the photos are a little soft.  I could not use flash inside of the museum, so I did the best I could shooting handheld with natural light.

Photo gallery: http://www.teleweb-pub.com/zenphoto/gilcrease-museum-rendezvous-2011/

Curt Walters' Website: http://curtwalters.com

Veryl Goodnight's Website: http://www.verylgoodnight.com/

Gilcrease Museum Website: http://gilcrease.utulsa.edu/rendezvous2011/index.html

That is it for this post and as always, if I can be of any assistance to you or any of your friends, family or colleagues with any of your real estate needs (residential, commercial or otherwise) or if I can help find a real estate professional for you to work with in your local community, please let me know.  It would be my pleasure to help.

Jim Rea
Keller Willliams Palisades