William
Matthews has been called "today's Frederic Remington." He earns praise
from
Western
Folklife Center Founding Director Hal Cannon,
"William Matthews fashions water and color to evoke the billow of a
cowboy's shirt at full gallop, the patina of a well-used saddle, the
blistering mirage of Nevada. Simply put, he sees the West with new
eyes." Cowboy poet and buckaroo Waddie
Mitchell comments, "Willy's work is so dead right and real, a
buckaroo can see what is beyond either side of the painting."
William
Matthews' work has been featured in gathering posters for the
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the
Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival,
the Southeastern Cowboy Festival and
Symposium, and others. He has painted Don
Edwards, Randy Rieman,
Waddie Mitchell, R. W.
Hampton, Wallace McRae, and many other cowboys
and ranchers. Some of those images are included in his landmark 1994 book,
Cowboys and Images (which is out of print, but sometimes available
from used book sources, such as
Amazon).
William Matthews' sumptuous 2007 book,
Working the West,
includes 180 color plates of his
Western subjects. The publisher describes the book, "Watercolorist
William Matthews has long been hailed as the preeminent painter of the
American West. In this new collection of 180 staggering paintings, he
captures the full range of western experience: endless skies, high plains,
the last working cowboys, the Navajo, the mystique of the Living Desert.
Steeped in introspection and connected to land, tradition, and identity,
Matthews' work evokes a place that is authentic, anachronistic, and
dynamic."
Learn more about William Matthews and view
some of his work at his web
site:
www.WilliamMatthewsGallery.com
