Jim Reynolds: Artist of the Year

James E. Reynolds Tucson Artist of the Year

Westerners often are accused of being realists, a heritage of the frontier, no doubt, when one faced life toe to toe - and there was no backing up.

Today, seeing things as they are still feels as natural to the Westerner as old blue jeans. It's something that's carried over into almost everything he does, including painting.

And Jim Reynolds, who this year reigns as the Tucson Festival Society's artist of the year, is no exception.

Like other cowboy artists, Reynolds paints the people of the West - old and new, the animals of the range, and the land itself. He's also devoted to authenticity, with a fine collection of various styles of saddles, guns and clothes that he uses as models in his paintings.

"I'm a fanatic about realism in everything," Reynolds says. "I don't like fantasies and fairy tales. I never did."

Yet his realism is something more than hard-line detail. It has a quality about it which injects his scenes with freshness, stirring the viewer's imagination. Reynolds calls it impressionistic: giving the appearance of realism.

"I like when people who've purchased a painting of mine, years ago, say they still look at it and find something new in it."

This quality is much in evidence in his painting of the year, titled Vamonos, Muchachos. Says Reynolds, "It could be a group of Pancho Villa's men around the early 1900s. They're wearing anything they could scrounge up. Some have wrapped their legs, and somebody has swiped somebody's U.S. hat."

The Festival Society will reproduce this work in a fine-quality limited edition of 500 copies, which will be signed, numbered and presented to those individuals or corporations who contribute $100 or more to the Festival.

But while Reynolds certainly makes a point of historical authenticity, he doesn't use it as a cover-up for artistic shortcomings. On the contrary, a Reynolds painting is first, last and always a work of art, says Don Hedgepeth, Director of the J. Everts Haley History Center in Midland, Texas.

"The fact that it is also of a western scene, which appeals to those of us who live in the West, is a secondary consideration. Any painting that attains the distinction of “fine art” must do so primarily on its artistic merit, and not merely because of a fortunate choice of subject matter.

“The level of artistic merit,” adds Hedgepeth, “can be measured by the artist’s command of the technical skills of painting, together with the ‘heart’ of the artist, his inspiration, being as much an ingredient of the finished work as the paint itself.” Hedgepeth says that had Reynolds painted the New England seacoast or the Florida Everglades instead of the West, “he would still have been an important artist.

“Fortunately, for those of us who love the West, Jim was born a Wester and chose Arizona as his home. Here, with abundant talent and a sensitive eye for his wonderful Southwestern surroundings, he will continue to produce paintings that are a prime factor in the development of Western art, as art, instead of just historical illustration.” Even though much of his work reflects his love of the Old West, he also enjoys painting contemporary scenes, such as working cattle ranches. Again, they are real, yet not so dedicated to detail that the viewer has nothing left to imagine.

“This level of artistic accomplishment,” Hedgepeth says, “is evident to art critics, even if they know nothing of Jim’s western subject matter. This,” he claims, “is the essential key to Reynolds’ success; not only are his paintings historically authentic, but, more importantly, they are esthetically pleasing and artistically mature.

“It is this artistic maturity that sets Reynolds apart from the thundering herds of Western artists.” Like many of his fellow Western artists, Reynolds began as an illustrator following art school, thereafter working for 15 years in Hollywood movie studios. But he never really lost his taste for the Western scene, continuing to travel the highways and backroads, sketching and painting for his own pleasure.

Then, in 1960, his paintings began to sell, and he made the transition to fulltime artist.

Today Reynolds and his wife, Carolyn, live in the red rock country of Sedona, in what was originally a small adobe ranch house. But he has remodeled and added to it in such a way that it now appears much larger.

Within there's a Phippen bronze on the cocktail table in the living room, and other groups of Western art are everywhere. There are also dramatic views from the windows, and both antique furniture in the rooms and others made by Reynolds, himself.

He has since won several major Western art awards, has been the subject of numerous articles and books, and was elected president for 1976 of the Cowboy Artists of America.

As the Tucson Festival Artist of the Year, Reynolds will now take a welldeserved place beside such notables as Paul Dyck, Olaf Wieghorst and Fred Kabotie, all of whom were previous recipients of the coveted award.