Colorado Springs artist's vivid paintings of Black cowboys are in high demand

Feb. 24—Thomas Blackshear II has a knack for painting Black cowboys and the American West.

Over the last half dozen years, the Colorado Springs Black artist has floated to the top of the Western art market in the U.S. His self-coined "Western nouveau" style is on fire, and requests for his pieces and presence regularly flow in from museums, galleries and major exhibits across the country.

While his interior might feel frazzled with the amount of work he needs to produce this year, his exterior portrays nothing but serenity. The towering artist sits in his cavernous studio on the southeast side of town, dwarfed by shelves and stacks of old and new work, boxes of his collectors items and national art magazines featuring profiles of his career. Spaces have been carved out for each of his artistic niches: tables and chairs for his Wednesday night art students, a corner to do illustration work, another for oil painting and a spot for sculpting.

Resting on an easel is an arresting commissioned painting for Stetson, the famous Western wear company. In it a Black cowboy gives his thirsty horse a drink of water out of his upside-down cowboy hat. When the company decided to revamp its original 100-year-old image, Blackshear was one of their two go-to artists.

Blackshear doesn't equivocate when it comes to the root of his success.

"The Lord," said Blackshear, 67. "I've spent a lot of time refining my craft, but I get opportunities a lot of my contemporaries don't."

His work, with its rich colors, finely tuned composition and scarce subject matter, is in high demand — right now he's one of the top three Black artists in his genre, said Broadmoor Galleries Director Krista Steed-Reyes.

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"With artists it's all about timing — right place, right time," Steed-Reyes said. "His work is so striking. You're not seeing a lot of Western art being done the way he does it. He takes something familiar to the viewer and he's redoing it, making it more modern."

Broadmoor Galleries recently featured Blackshear, along with two of his Black contemporaries, Dean Mitchell and Monument-based Ezra Tucker, in the exhibit "Icons of American Art." Some of Blackshear's drawings and two of his painting studies are still up at the gallery.

"He's one of those artists whose pieces don't last long," Steed-Reyes said. "(His work is) very impactful in its wow factor. His quality is consistent, but he's always reinventing himself."

Next year, Blackshear has three major shows, including a solo museum show in Midland, Texas, and the Prix De West, one of the country's premiere Western art exhibits and sales. Over the past half dozen years, his work also has appeared at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, which now has one of his pieces in its permanent collection, and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts. Those pieces are on tour in the museum's traveling show.

"His subject matter is important," said Michael Clawson, executive editor of International Artist Publishing, which produces Western Art Collector, a monthly magazine and website.

"I'm a big believer in Black cowboy material. He's drawing lot of attention to their role in history. We should applaud and cheer that we have artists now shining a light on the role of the Black cowboy in the discovery and taming of the West. Only a few artists are doing that."

Contact the writer: 636-0270

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