The Center for Western Studies

The first fourteen years of Olaf Seltzer's life were spent in Copenhagen, Denmark. He attended public school there, and when he was twelve, his exceptional talent in draftsmanship warranted his admittance as a special student to the Technical Institute of Copenhagen. His father died when he was a teen, and with his mother, he moved to Great Falls, Montana, where he worked as a cowboy and a machinist for the Great Northern Railroad. He sketched in his free time. In Great Falls, Seltzer befriended Charlie Russell, who would be a mentor and a lifelong friend. Russell taught him how to paint in both watercolors and oil, and Seltzer practiced this on the side while continuing his railroad job. It was not until 1921 that he attempted to make a living with his art.

His style, while showing the influence of Russell, also demonstrates his individuality, especially in his subtle use of color and decisiveness of line. Poor eyesight did not prevent Seltzer from being a prolific artist, having produced over 2,500 paintings. The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma holds a collection of Seltzer's paintings.

Joseph H. Sharp was born in Bridgeport, Ohio. He began his art studies as a boy at the McMicken School of Design after an accident caused him to lose his hearing at the age of 14. He continued at the Cincinnati Art Academy, and then at the age of 22 went to Antwerp. Four years later, he studied at the Munich Academy and then in Spain and Italy. Finally, in the mid-1890s, he attended the Julian Academy in Paris and taught class at the Cincinnati Academy of Art until 1902.

In 1883, in the midst of his art education, Sharp made the first of his many trips into the West to sketch and to study Indian life. These sketches were used as illustrations for Harper's Weekly, along with his observations. Ten years later, he returned to New Mexico, where he later became the father of the Taos Society of Artists.

Paintings exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900 resulted in his receiving a commission for the government to produce a series of Indian Studies for its permanent collection at the Smithsonian. In 1901, under the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt, a cabin studio was constructed at the Crow Agency on the Custer Battlefield for the artist to use as long as he wished. Sharp was the only artist so honored by the United States Government.

Sharp's deafness seemed to work as an advantage in his relations with the Indians, as they allowed him to paint and photograph many subjects that were normally unavailable to other artists. Because of this trust, Sharp was able to portray his Indian subjects with amazing accuracy and detail.

His paintings are held by the Amon Carter Museum, Wyoming State Art Gallery, Bradford Brinton Memorial, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Museum of New Mexico, Cincinnati Art Museum, University of California, the Department of Anthropology, the Anshutz Collection, and the Smithsonian Institute.

"Fly Time" Oil/Canvas, 1950

"The Last Arrow" Oil/Canvas, nd

"The Thunder Stick" Oil/Canvas, nd

"Turning the Wild Bunch" Oil/Canvas, 1944

A full-blooded Assiniboine, William Standing was born in Oswego on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. He attended the agency day school in Oswego and the Presbyterian Indian Mission School in Wolf Point. In 1920, he went to Haskell Institute, an Indian training school in Lawrence, Kansas, where he received his first professional art training. After completing school, he roamed the Northwest selling his artwork before returning to Oswego to live. His paintings depict the lifestyle of the historical Plains Indians. Oil, watercolor, and pencil were his favorite mediums. Often overlooked is Standing's ability to capture the humor both in the actions and in the features of the subjects he painted. In 1951, at the height of his art career, Standing was killed in an automobile accident.

One of the premier watercolorists of the twentieth century, Donald Teague was born in Brooklyn, New York. From 1916-1917, he studied at the Art Students League, and after serving in the navy during World War II, he became a student in London. Upon his return to New York, he continued his studies at the Art Students League and began his long art career as an illustrator in 1921. He was the primary illustrator for The Saturday Evening Post, but also did work for Collier's, where he signed his illustrations with another name, Edwin Dawes. In 1938, he moved to California to specialize as a Western illustrator for Collier's, but when the magazine ceased publication in 1958, Teague devoted his entire time to painting. In 1973, he became a founding member of the National Academy of Western Art.

The uniqueness of Donald Teague's work lies in his own personality and in his ability to transmit it into a painting, to tell in watercolor what he saw and felt when he discovered the subject of the painting. His watercolors are a kind of realism he calls synthesis, for rarely, if you returned to the spot and the moment where a Teague painting began, could you find the same image as that in the painting.

Howard Terpning is known as "The Storyteller of the Native American." As one of America's most respected Western artists, his work typically signifies consistent technical skill, rare sensitivity, and insight.

He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and was educated at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the American Academy of Art. Upon the completion of his education, he traveled to New York, where he gained employment as a commercial illustrator.

At the height of his vocation, Terpning decided to leave New York and head west to Tucson, Arizona. Within three years of his move, he was elected to the National Academy of Western Art and to the Cowboy Artists of America.

Terpning's work continues to bring the highest prices of any living western artist.