Vance Kirkland Paintings

Original vintage 1940s Modernist Landscape painting of Red Rocks Park, Colorado by Vance Kirkland (1904-1981). Titled, "Ed (Hicks) Sketching at Red Rocks". This regionalist mountain landscape painting is set near Red Rocks Park, Morrison, Colorado (just west of Denver). The figure in the painting is of Kirkland's friend, Ed Hicks. Watercolor on paper, signed and dated, January 1943, lower left and titled verso by the artist. Painted in colors of red, brown, blue, and green. Presented in a custom gold leaf frame, outer dimensions measure 34 ¾ x 42 ⅞ x 1 ¼ inches. Painting as shown within the mat and frame measures 21 x 29 inches. Provenance: Private Collection, Denver, Colorado About the Artist: Variously referred to as the “Father of Modern Colorado Painting,” “Dean of Colorado Artists” and “Colorado’s pre-eminent artist,” Kirkland was an inventive, visionary painter who spent fifty-two years of his fifty-four year career in Denver. Of the approximately 1,200 paintings he created, about 550 from the first half of his career (1927-1953) are water-based media: acquarelle, gouache, casein and egg tempera, with a few oils. In the latter half of his career (1953-1981) he used oil and his unique oil and water mixture. He also produced five hundred drawings and some ten prints, mostly lithographs on stone, while also engaged in teaching full-time for most of the period. To show people “something they have never seen before and new ways to look at things,” he felt he needed to preserve his artistic freedom. Consequently, he chose to spend his entire professional career in Denver far removed from the established American art centers in the East and Midwest. “By minding my own business and working on my own,” he said, “I think it was possible to develop in this part of the country… I’ve developed my kind of work [and] I think my paintings are stronger for having worked that way.” The geographical isolation resulting from his choice to stay in Colorado did not impede his creativity, as it did other artists, but in fact contributed to his unique vision. The son of a dentist, who was disappointed with his [son’s] choice of art as a career, Kirkland flunked freshman watercolor class in 1924 at the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art) for putting colors into his landscapes that did not exist in nature and for competing colors. Not dissuaded, he won first prize for his watercolors in his junior and senior years. [While in Cleveland,] he studied with three influential teachers. Henry Keller, included in the prestigious New York Armory Show in 1913, introduced him to designed realism which he later used in his Colorado landscapes in the 1930s and 1940s. His other teachers were Bill Eastman, who studied with Hans Hofmann and appreciated all the new movements in modern art, and Frank Wilcox, a fine watercolorist. While a student at the Cleveland School of Art, Kirkland concurrently took liberal arts courses at Western Reserve and the Cleveland School of Education and taught two freshman courses in watercolor and design, receiving his diploma in painting from the school in 1927 by doing four years of work in three. The following year he received a Bachelor of Education in Art degree from the same institution. In 1929 he assumed the position of founding director of the University of Denver’s School of Art, originally known as the Chappell School of Art. He resigned three years later when the university reneged on its agreement to grant its art courses full recognition toward a Bachelor of Arts degree. His students prevailed on him to continue teaching, resulting in the Kirkland School of Art which he opened in 1932 at 1311 Pearl Street in Denver. The building, where he painted until his death in 1981, formerly was the studio of British-born artist, Henry Read, designer of the City of Denver Seal and one of the original thirteen charter members of the Artists’ Club of Denver, forerunner of the Denver Art Museum. The Kirkland School of Art prospered for the next fourteen years with its courses accredited by the University of Colorado Extension Center in Denver. The teaching income from his art school and his painting commissions helped him survive the Great Depression. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts commissioned from him two post office murals, Cattle Roundup (1938, Eureka, Kansas), and Land Rush (1940, Sayre, Oklahoma). He also did murals for several Denver clients: the Gerald Hughes mansion (1936, later demolished), Arthur Johnson home (1936-37, Seven Drinks of Man), Albany Hotel (1937, later demolished), Neustetter’s Department Store (1937, “History of Costume,” three of five saved in 1987 before the building interior was demolished in advance of its condo conversion), and the Denver Country Club (1945, partially destroyed and later painted over). In 1953 the Ford Times, published by the Ford Motor Company, commissioned Kirkland along with fellow Denver artists, William Sanderson and Richard Sorby, to paint six watercolors each for the publication. Their work appeared in articles [about] Colorado entitled, “Take to the High Road” (of the Colorado Rockies) by Alicita and Warren Hamilton. Kirkland sketched the mountain passes and high roads in the area of Mount Evans, Independence Pass near Aspen, and Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. In 1946 Kirkland closed his art school when the University of Denver rehired him as director of its School of Art and chairman of the Division of Arts and Humanities. In 1957...

Vance Kirkland 1966 abstract oil painting titled "Space No. 3" in shades of red, blue and green with areas of the artist's signature oil and water style...

1955 Vance Kirkland original signed oil painting "Coral, Amethyst and Grey (Fire and Ice)" abstract expressionist mid-century modern period Denver artist. Presented in a custom fram...

Original vintage 1937 painting by Colorado artist, Vance Kirkland (1904-1981). Presented in a frame measuring 38 ¾ x 29 ½ x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size measures 29 ½ x 21 ½ inches. As a...

Original watercolor by renowned 20th century Denver artist, Vance Kirkland (1904-1981), Dated: 1945.34 (painting number 34 from 1945) from the artist's ...

1970 Vance Kirkland (1904-1981) abstract "dot painting" from the "Energy of Vibrations in Space" series. This large format square painting was executed...

Abstract Expressionist oil painting by Colorado artist, Vance Kirkland. Handwritten paper label tacked to stretcher on reverse reads, "Fourth of July f...

Colorado Landscape (View from Red Rocks looking south toward Soda Lakes), original vintage 1943 painting by Colorado artist, Vance Kirkland (1904-1981)....

Housed in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 31 ½ x 39 x ¾ inches. Image size is 21 ½ x 29 inches. About the artist: As an artist and educator, Vance Kirkland...

From Kirkland's fifth painting period: Dot Paintings; subcategory A. "Energy of Vibrations in Space". Canvas measures 60 x 60 x 1 inches. About the Artist: As an artist and educ...

Watercolor on paper. Unsigned, with letter of authenticity from Kirkland Museum. Framed dimensions are 19.25 x 24.5 x 1.25 inches; image measures 14.5 x 19.5 inches (sight). About the artist: As an artist and educator, Vance Kirkland...

An important work by the renowned 20th century Denver artist. Painted in his trademark oil and water technique, this rare work is consistent with his Nebulae/space series from this ...