The Arts - Colorado - page 748

An Art World Emerges
Folk art was the way from the days of indigenous freedom right through to the pioneering
period. While there was certainly live music, song and dance in saloons that doubled as
brothels, there wasn't much of what we would now consider fine art in nascent Colorado.
In fact, even as the state grew into a ranching, mining and railroad force in the first half of
the 20th century, sophisticated art wasn't part of the equation.
Enter Alice Bemis Taylor, the wife of a powerful mining tycoon. She leaned on her vast
connections in the New York art world and, with the help of other wealthy philanthropists,
founded the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where Martha Graham danced on stage in
its 400-seat theater on opening night. Today the center is still arguably the best museum in
Colorado.
But what about iconic Western imagery? The Denver Art Museum, which also has a vast
collection of contemporary and global art, as well as the largest Native American art collec-
tion in the US, is perhaps most famous for its gallery of cowboy art, including the iconic
Long Jakes, the Rocky Mountain Man by Charles Deas. The Arthur Roy Mitchell Memorial
Museum of Western Art is a decidedly smaller but earnest Western art gallery in Trinidad.
Also known as 'the Mitch,' it was built in honor of this local cowboy artist in a late 19th-
century department store.
But what about the new West? Public art and the growth of modern art outlets are shak-
ing it up. Our favorite is Denver's newly inaugurated Clyfford Still Museum, featuring the
breathtaking works of this major 20th-century abstract impressionist.
Willie Nelson's seminal album, Red Headed Stranger is a concept album about a fugitive Montana cowboy
on the run from the law after killing his wife and her lover. Inspired by Colorado's Rocky Mountains, Nel-
son purportedly wrote the tracks while driving back from a ski weekend.