Delmas Howe: Rodeo Pantheon

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Delmas Howe was born in El Paso, Texas in 1935 and raised in Truth or Consequences New Mexico. After graduation from high school he progressed through undergraduate work at Wichita State University, then four years in the US Air Force, a move to the East Coast, graduate work at Yale University and several years of classes in NYC at the Art Students' League and the School of the Visual Arts while working as a professional musician. After a return to the West and a successful design studio in Amarillo, Texas he returned to Truth or Consequences.

Rodeo Pantheon is probably his most know painting series: "The gods are tourists visiting the rodeo, isolated from what is going on around them. The nude ancients represent the aesthetic and spiritual world and the clothed cowboys represent the barbaric aspect of man."

 
Atlas, Private Collection

 
Allen, 46 x 32 inches, Artist's Collection

 
Gotterdammerung, 56 x 70 inches, Artist's Collection

 
Heroic Fredo, Artist's Collection

 
Hylas and Hercules at the Chutes, 30 x 30 inches, Artist's Collection

 
Nude Back with Bull Rider, 26 x 24 inches, Artist's Collection

 
The Return of Ulysses, 60 x 78.5 inches, Artist's Collection

 
Theseus, 38 x 44 inches, Artist's Collection

 
Study for Gotterdammerung, 24 x 30 inches, Artist's Collection

"Delmas Howe occupies a strange position in the American art world. Currently, he is probably America’s best-known ‘gay artist’ – in the sense that he is the best-known artist who puts homosexual feeling at the very center of his work. A large number of American gay men have learned to recognize their own feelings through stumbling across his paintings. His web-site, www.delmashowe.com gets many thousands of hits every year, and he has been further publicized by the success of the recent documentary film ‘The Truth or Consequences of Delmas Howe’, which celebrates his personality, his life-style and, most of all perhaps, the remote little town in central New Mexico where he lives and works. Young gay men regard him as a hero figure, and some even make pilgrimages to see him. Recently he was the recipient of a Governor’s Award from the State of New Mexico, a recognition not of his fame in the gay world, but of his long-sustained cultural efforts in his local community. In terms of his social significance, his career rivals that of America’s major feminist artist, Judy Chicago, who also lives in New Mexico. It is no accident that the two artists are personal friends." Edward Lucie-Smith (to read more)

http://www.delmashowe.com/

More Artists at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

Comments

[zamaxfield.livejournal.com]

This artist is utterly amazing. Earthy and vaguely disturbing and yet complex and beautiful at the same time. Wow.

I feel so grateful for the artists you share here, Elisa.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

You are better tham me to express in few words the complexity of this artist. Really thank you, I enjoy to share the artists exactly for the chance to find out how different people react to them. Elisa

[zamaxfield.livejournal.com]

I was telling my friend that they seemed to be created in a language I can appreciate but maybe not understand. Does that make sense? It's really late here, and I think I've had too much caffeine. *g*

His work is complicated, though.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I think it's very symbolic. I'm not an art expert, but I believe that this type of painting has a Metaphysical inspiration, like Giorgio De Chirico in Italy for example. Elisa