Walters’ exhibition shares from private collections and Sedona scenes

There were paintings hanging on the walls and leaning against bookshelves in Sedona painter Curt Walters’ home studio in August, but the large easel he does most of his work on was empty.

“It’s not like me at all,” he said.

Instead of painting, Walters has had a busy summer finding local collectors of his work for his upcoming show with the Fine Art Museum of Sedona beginning in September.

The show is split into two parts. Most of his paintings on display, the “Curt Walters: Lifetime of Art” exhibition will be in the Mary D. Fisher Fine Art Complex at a FAMoS pop-up from Friday, Sept. 4, to Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Another, smaller collection, titled “Impressions of Sedona 1980-2000,” will be on display at the Sedona Heritage Museum from Tuesday, Sept. 1, to Monday, Nov. 30.

All the paintings in the show come from private collectors based in Sedona and haven’t been on display since they were sold.

One, titled “Immediate Impact: Desert View,” Walters said he hadn’t even seen in about 15 years. Another, titled “Winter at Yaki Point,” he hadn’t seen in 25.

“When they’re out of mind, you have a tendency to forget what they look like,” Walters said. “You remember the paintings, but I was completely overwhelmed by how beautiful they actually are when I saw them again.

“I’m very proud of the whole collection.”

Museum Exhibit

On Friday, Sept. 18, a documentary about Walters’ recent and old endeavors will be screened at the Sedona Heritage Museum’s apple shed from 5 to 8 p.m., according to a press release.

It will be screened again at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre during its First Friday celebrations on Oct. 2 from 5 to 8 p.m., and include a Q&A to follow.

The Mary D. Fisher threatre exhibition will be completely free for the duration of the show.

The cost to see the Heritage Museum’s exhibition is included in the museum admission, which is free on Thursdays for locals.

Visit fineartmuseumofsedona.org or curtwalters.com/lifetime-of-artretrospective for more information.

“Resilience: The Life and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters,” written by his grandson dDamian Foreman, was published earlier this year and showcases much of Walters’ life work, including award-winning Grand Canyon paintings and other subjects, including many landscape and cityscape paintings from throughout Europe as well as his fascination with Spanish conquistadors.

“I didn’t know at the time that we first started talking with Curt about doing the exhibit, he was going to have this new book coming out,” said Harley Todd, FAMoS board of trustees chairman.

“The book is just fantastic.”

Todd said every page reminds him what an “astounding” artist Walters is.

Walters will be selling his book throughout the show and will be signing copies.

The Grand Canyon painter has a history of painting throughout the Southwest. Many paintings featured in the FAMoS show are of Sedona.

Memory Lane

Walking through Walters’ house, works being readied for the show leaned against the walls in the hallways.

“I absolutely love them all,” he said, and gestured to a 30×48-inch painting of Sedona red rocks in the background with vibrant yellow yucca plants in the foreground.

“But I think I’m enamored with the yucca painting. It just seems to speak to my spirit of who I am right at the moment,” he said.

He painted this “Vicissitude,” in 1993, and it is currently owned by Laura Van House.

One of the reasons he likes it so much is because it was plein air, meaning he painted it outdoors on site, which helped create the style that draws his attention nowadays.

“I’ve noticed that as I get older, I respond to different periods of my work in different ways, and right now, I’m responding to that work that I did from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s,” he said.

“Right now, it speaks to my soul for some reason.”

The other reason it speaks to him is because the location doesn’t exist anymore.

Many of his painting locations have, over the years, been developed or otherwise changed.

The “Vicissitude” location is now a parking lot.

Finding History

The show itself has been in the works throughout the summer, trying to identify which pieces should be in the show.

“We have a committee who works on the collections, I just happen to be a friend of Curt’s,” Todd said.

Walters offered up some of the art in his own collection for the show, and went around to find more pieces.

He knew of a collector in Sedona and went to their house to check on a painting he knew they had.

When he got there, he found a painting he had done while in New Mexico, painting the back yard of his artist friend Jullian Robles.

“I asked them if I could borrow them, and I walked in and I see this painting,” Walters said, pointing to “Julian Robles’ Garden,” an oil painting he finished in 1997.

“I go, ‘oh my God, where did you get it?’”

You know, like, ‘how did it happen?’”

It was a painting he had done while visiting Robles, who was a friend he’d met in 1995 in New Mexico.

“They [had] responded just to the painting for what it is, and but I responded to it as I told you, because it was my friend,” Walters said.

“Julian Robles’ Garden” will be displayed in FAMoS’ Mary D. Fisher Theatre location.

A New Eye

Hopefully soon, he said, he’d get back to working on another Grand Canyon piece he started almost a year ago.

It’s a 48×80-inch canvas with most of the background completed, but the canyon itself is still in its earlier form.

Recently, he went in person to Grand Canyon and painted a small version of what will be the foreground for the larger painting.

He wasn’t sure about it at the time, because the heat affected the paint and the unstable tripod tipped over at one point.

When he got home and the smaller painting sat on his dining room table for a little while, he found he was really pleased with how it turned out.

He named it “Heat Haze at Cedar Ridge.”

“When you’re working in a painting, you’re in battle-mode, and you don’t see them for what they become,” Walters said.

“You only see them in that moment in which you’re working, and it takes a little while to look at them through fresh eyes and actually see them for what they are. Takes a few days. And, in fact, sometimes, it takes 40 years.”