The Next Generation

Additional Information

Provenance:
Owings Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Private Collection, Texas

While attempting to explain what makes Howard Terpning’s works so special, artists, collectors and curators will run through a variety of answers: his ability as a storyteller, his confident compositions, his nuanced sense for detail or his ability to capture emotions in faces, a skill he learned way back in his illustration days. All of these answers are correct, and yet Harley Brown, the artist’s friend and colleague, proposes an alternative: “What draws people to his works is difficult to explain in words. Even a casual pass through [his work] will entice the viewer to take a closer look. Pick any painting. Look at it in a general, easy manner. Slowly inspect a few of the details: the finishing touches of a feather, the careful brushwork around an eye, maybe the longer strokes of a fold in a hide. Now glance over to the apparently casual brushwork in the background or a grassy area. You will see a similarity of technique in both cases. One is more articulate, the other has a slight abandon, yet the work is no doubt from the same creator. Each area of the painting is completed with utmost conscious (and subconscious) care. If you’re an artist (or a careful observer of art) it is fascinating to focus in on these details, which bring together all of the important elements of aesthetics. This is a painter who steadily honed his personal approach to the point where it flows from him naturally. Each daub and whisk of the brush is a deeply personal moment of expression, like an evening reminiscing with his wife Marlies or leaning over to make a grandchild laugh.”