Longtime local artist will take four paintings to top art show in Oklahoma

Only the top artists in the country receive an invitation to the Prix de West Art Exhibition and Sale in Oklahoma City, and one Sedona artist has exhibited in the show continuously since 1998.

The event at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum includes the top Western artists in the country and is considered by many to be the most important show in the United States, according to Sedona artist Curt Walters, who said 2011 will be his 14th time participating in the Prix de West.

“It’s quite an honor to be invited to this show. All types of artists are clamoring to be in it,” Walters said. “I tried to get into the Prix de West for 20 years.”

The Prix de West will have its opening weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 10, 11 and 12, with 108 artists exhibiting their best Western artwork for show and sale.

Walters won the Prix de West Purchase Award in 2007. The museum bought his painting for the display. He also won the Frederick Remington Painting Award in 2004 and 2005, the only artist to win them back-to-back, he said. In fact, Walters has won six awards at the show. Only one other artist has won more than three awards since 1995.

“I also won three Nona Jean Hulsey awards,” Walters said.

While Walters enjoys the awards and the recognition, he said there was one incident at the show that particularly gave him a thrill. A woman was standing in front of one of his paintings and was visibly upset and crying. He asked if she wanted a tissue.

“She said, ‘No, I’m just overwhelmed by your painting.’ It was probably the greatest compliment I ever received,” Walters said.

This is Prix de West’s 39th year. It has quite a history, including how the show was named. Prix de West was fashioned after a show held in Rome for more than 150 years called Prix de Rome, which began around 1750 and lasted until around 1900. It was a prestigious competition for artists, sculptors and architects.

“The French government actually sponsored people to go to the Prix de Rome. It was a chance to study the ancient architecture and artwork in Rome,” Walters said. “It was nurtured through the Paris Salon, which was a large competition, but it was more prestigious to go and win the Prix de Rome and paint there. It was the Olympics of art.”

The Prix de West is very much like the Prix de Rome. Winning the Prix de West is like winning the Academy Award, Walters said.

“The Prix de West has had a huge influence on my work. That’s where I found all of my heroes. All the guys I wanted to see were there,” he said. “A lot of good things in my life, artistically, have happened to me because of Prix de West.”

Walters went on to say when he was a child he never thought his work would hang in museums next to some of the greatest artists in the world. Today, his paintings are not only hanging in museums but are sought after. Many of his paintings are of the Grand Canyon.

Walters recently took a painting excursion to Spain and France and captured some of the ancient architecture, such as old, tall bridges and doorways, along with the landscape. He plans to repaint the smaller paintings he made there onto much larger canvases — Walters’ specialty.

Walters will have four paintings in the Prix de West show, including:

• “Larches.” Fir trees in a canyon. They are the only fir trees to lose their needles.
• “Long House Ruins of Mesa Verde.” Walters was able to go up and paint from the inside of the ruins.
• “View from Desert View.” The Grand Canyon with the winding river and a thunderstorm.
• “Boston Avenue Church.” A night view of the church in downtown Tulsa, Okla.

Walters said painting is a part of him, like breathing — it is impossible to think of his life without it.

“I think artists are born. We don’t have a choice. It’s a compulsion — art. You just have to paint,” he said.