The Lougheed Legacy
Painting photo courtesy of Brent Bingham/Photo Effects
One of Lougheed’s favorite subjects, horses are seen in this painting entitled Winter in the High Country.
Robert Lougheed, an adamant believer in truth in art, often has been called “a painter’s painter.”
“He believed in what I call ‘creative truth,’” says Bill Rey, co-owner of Claggett/Rey Gallery in Vail Village.
“He painted the real way, without the gimmicks or smoke and mirrors prevalent in so much of today’s art world, where a large percentage of work hanging in galleries are really photographs projected on a canvas, traced and then filled in.”
Lougheed painted from drawings of what he observed firsthand, adhering to his philosophy that “the best information is always in front of you.”
Rey maintains, as did Lougheed, that all real paintings start with a drawing.
Born on a farm in Ontario, Canada, Lougheed began his career as a commercial illustrator, creating drawings for, among other publications, the Toronto Star. At age 25, he moved to New York City where he studied with Vincent DuMond and Dean Cornwell at the prestigious Arts Students League.
He also continued his illustrating career, with his works gracing the pages of such magazines as National Geographic and Reader’s Digest as well as a number of books. Perhaps his most iconic work as a commercial artist is Mobil Oil’s famous red flying horse logo.
He also traveled extensively and in 1970, enamored by the natural beauty of the American West, settled in New Mexico with his wife,Cordy, and began exploring the wonders of the Southwest as well as such diverse places as Canada and France, where he lived for a time, capturing its natural beauty on canvas.
Lougheed’s love of nature is vividly reflected in his works. He was especially fond of horses, which comprise a major portion of his work.
“I always use nature as my model,” the artist once said. “If I should paint a horse from memory, it would be a Bob Lougheed horse and not a real horse. All the horses, in fact all the animals in my paintings, are real.
To the young, unspoiled artist, I would say...learn to draw and paint from life. Don’t get trapped by photography.”
His wildlife portrayals so impressed the U.S. Postal Service that they asked the artist to design the six-cent buffalo stamp for its Wildlife Conservation Series.
Today, Lougheed’s paintings hang in a number of major museums worldwide, including the National Museum of Wildlife and the Cowboy Hall of Fame. In addition, his influence can be found in the works of many now-prominent artists he mentored.
In 2003, Jim Rey and his wife, Maggie, discovered a large inventory of Lougheed’s works his widow had kept at the New Mexico home after his untimely death in 1982. Soon thereafter, the Reys along with gallery partners Ray and Sally Duncan, purchased the collection with the goal of preserving his art for posterity.
To do that, they recreated his New Mexico studio in a room adjoining the Vail gallery. The studio, which opened in December 2008, exudes a natural warmth with its adobe kiva, rich wood-plank flooring and wood-beamed ceilings. Even some of his original paintbrushes are there, still in the can where the artist kept them.
In addition, Rey, in collaboration with writer Don Hedgepeth, produced a book about Lougheed’s life and works entitled simply Robert Lougheed, to be published in December 2009.
Looking at the works displayed throughout the studio, one can sense the closeness Lougheed had with his art.
“Painting was not just what Lougheed did, it defined who he was,” Rey explains. So it’s easy to understand the sentiment expressed in the following Lougheed quotation that appears in his biography:
“All of these works were fathered by me and now sit in front of me, finished and framed. I raised them and lived with them, I will miss them because they are my children.
They have been a part of me and a part of my life. They were difficult at times, there were many problems but, like all children, they grew up, and many of the rough edges were knocked off along the way, and I am now sending them into the world to live on their own.”
And so they will.
Don Berger is editor of Vail-Beaver Creek Magazine, Colorado Summit Magazine and Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine.
