Theodore Waddell | Biography


Back to Theodore Waddell | Work

Media Description: Painting and Sculpture

Biography

The heart and hand needed to create a strong American painting is not limited to those living east of the Mississippi. It is a product of endless work, self-evaluation, and the courage to allow one's paintings to evolve. It demands the marriage of the artist's lifestyle and his work. Theodore Waddell exemplifies this definition. His enthusiasm and lifestyle are reflected in the way he works and the imagery he uses.

Waddell's paintings are a combination of rough marks, thick paint, transparent elegant strokes, and, on a few occasions a slow, hard line scratched into the canvas. You can feel the movement of the paint throughout the paintings, but the subjects are frozen. They are not frozen as a stagnant object, but captured as a solitary image. Captured, interpreted, and enveloped in the landscape. They are carved out of, or laid onto the green and grey-yellow of the spring and summer, or the white canopy of winter. And sometimes there are ghosts in the paintings, the faint image of what has changed in the piece or decays in the pasture. These ghosts are metaphors for the struggle and change that is constant in life; our own mortality. Waddell states, "The understanding of death brings about a feeling of wonderfulness and appreciation of life and just how fragile and magical it all is."

Whether Waddell is studying the changing seasons, animals as individuals, or the later figures, one can see his magic in his reverence for nature and celebration of paint. He is a painter's painter: strong hearted, sure handed, and high spirited.

Therefore, if I must categorize Waddell, he will live in the ranks of American painters and not be limited to the confines of the western artist.

Jennifer Complo McNutt
Curator of Contemporary Art
Eiteljorg Museum

Theodore Waddell's sophisticated modernist paintings have attracted widespread recognition. A native Montanan cattle rancher, Waddell most often paints freely-rendered range animals roaming the vast plains of Eastern Montana. In his work he draws a deliberate parallel between his subject and the elements of abstract art: cattle and horses are motifs formally arranged on the flattened and enveloping painted "ground" characteristic of modernism. Noted earlier for heavily textured surfaces, Waddell's recent paintings are more atmospheric, with translucent wax medium layers suggesting the drift of grazing animals, transitions of days, and the procession of the seasons.

Theodore Waddell was born in Billings, MT in 1941 and raised in Laurel, MT. He studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Eastern Montana College, and Wayne State University, Detroit (MFA, 1968). Waddell taught at the University of Montana from 1968 to 1976, and has since been a full time artist and rancher. He has had over ninety one-man exhibitions, major surveys at the Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, and the Denver Art Museum.

Waddell's father, Teddy, painted boxcars for the Northern Pacific railroad. When Teddy would return home at night he relaxed with a paint-by-numbers art piece while his son watched in fascination. Young Waddell's budding interest in paint paralleled a growing interest in music. He played coronet in a high school dance band, traveling on weekends to play for dances in nearby Montana towns. His interest in music would later turn to jazz, which in turn influenced his art.

An early interest in architecture was squelched when he flunked a math test at Eastern Montana College in Billings. Instead Waddell enrolled in Isabelle Johnson's (known as Montana's first modernist painter) painting class. After a few days with her, he decided painting was what he wanted to do the rest of his life. Johnson's work, steeped in the nineteenth-century European traditions of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism rather than traditional Western realism that had long dominated art in the region, clearly had impact on Waddell's style of painting. Waddell studied with Johnson for two years and received his first big break with a scholarship to study at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Homesick after a little more than a year of study, Waddell jumped on a plane home and upon arriving in Laurel, found his draft papers waiting for him. Waddell went on to spent two years in the U.S. Army, playing trumpet and touring with a big band. Returning to Billings, he finished his degree at Eastern, and then his Master's of fine arts at Wayne State University in Detroit.

In 1968 Waddell joined the University of Montana art faculty, teaching sculpture and design. For eight years he lived in Arlee, teaching at the University and creating many minimalist-influenced, polished steel sculptures that can still be viewed in many towns and cities across the state. "When we were living in the mountains, making sculpture made sense and it fit within the context of the narrow mountain valleys," Waddell says.

In 1976 Waddell left UM and took a job as a manager for a large ranch north of Laurel owned by relatives of his wife Betty. "On the prairie, where you can see for 150 miles in any direction, sculpture made no sense to me," he said, "I couldn't afford to make sculpture on the scale necessary for it to make sense so I went back to drawing and painting, drawing first, and then, after feeling the need for a scale change, painting our black cows." For years, Waddell ranched and painted, rarely showing any of his work.

In 1982 Waddell did exhibit a group of his paintings of cattle and landscapes in the sales arena at the Billings livestock auction yard. Soon after, a curator from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. came to town looking for artists to include in a painting biennial, the Second Western State Exhibition. Waddell's paintings were among those chosen for the biennial and ended up being singled out in reviews by the Washington Post and The New York Times. They were also the subject of a Newsweek article; thus his career was launched. The exhibit traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other venues, and Waddell signed on with noted galleries in San Francisco and Reno, Nevada. Contracts soon followed with galleries in Chicago, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Waddell left the ranching life in 1995, moving to the Gallatin Valley east of Bozeman. He now divides his time between homes in Sheridan, Wyoming and Hailey, Idaho, where his wife, Lynn Campion, a writer and photographer, teaches at the Sun Valley Art Center.








Resume

Born 1941 Billings, MT

Education
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, MFA, 1968
Eastern Montana College, Billings, MT, BS, Ed., 1966
Brooklyn Museum Art School, Brooklyn, NY, 1962-63

Teaching
Professor of Art, University of Montana 1968-76

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

Visions West Gallery, Denver, CO

Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, Texas

2011

J. Willott Gallery, Palm Desert, CA

Visions West Gallery, Denver

Appleton Museum, Ocala, FL

Oats Park Arts Center, Fallon, NV


2010

J. Willott Gallery, Palm Desert, CA

Visions West Gallery, Denver, CO

Valley Fine Art, Aspen, CO

Altamira Fine Art, Jackson, WY


2009

J. Willott Gallery, Palm Desert, CA

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Meyer East Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Albrecht-Kemper Museum, St. Joseph, MO

Fresno Museum, Fresno, CA


2008

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Art Museum of Eastern Idaho, Idaho Falls, ID


2007

Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA

Paige Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA

Lyndsay McCandles Contemporary, Jackson, WY

Dana Gallery, Missoula, MT

Two Man Show with James Cook, Cline Dale Fine Art, Scottsdale


2006

Sardella Fine Art, Aspen, CO

Paige Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Meyer Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Paris Gibson Museum, Great Falls, MT

Hockaday Museum, Kalispell, MT


2005

Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV

Paige Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Botanica Fine Art, Bozeman, MT

Jackson Street Gallery, Jackson, WY

Dana Gallery, Missoula, MT

Oats Park Art Center, Fallon, NV


2004

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID


2003

AVC Gallery, New York, NY

Vanier Galleries, Tucson, AZ

Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY

St. Patrick's Hospital, Missoula, MT

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Susan Duval Gallery, Aspen, CO

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID


2002

Vanier Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ

University of Montana, Missoula-Retrospective Exhibition

Botanica Fine Art, Bozeman, MT

Holter Museum, Helena, MT

Custer County Art Center, Miles City, MT


2001

Paige Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX

Friesen Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Martin Harris Gallery, Jackson, WY

Plains Museum, Fargo, ND

Polk Museum, Lakeland, FL


2000

Susan Duval Gallery, Aspen, CO

Botanica Fine Art, Bozeman, MT

Laura Russo Gallery, Portland, OR

Bernice Steinbaum, Miami, Florida, Two Man Show

Printmaking Survey, Memorial Union Gallery, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND

Printmaking Survey, Northwest Art Center, Minot State University, Minot, ND

Early Works on Paper, Yellowstone Museum, Touring

Retrospective Exhibition-Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT. Catalogue, Touring


1999

Friesen Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Friesen Gallery, Seattle, WA

Two Person Exhibition with Lynn Campion, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Two Person Show, Suzanne Brown Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

One Man Show, Dennos Museum, Traverse City, MI

I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Kass Family Portraits, Yellowstone Museum, Billings, MT

Works on Paper, Laura Russo Gallery, Portland, OR


1998

Two Man Exhibition--Suzanne Brown Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY

Martin Harris Gallery, Jackson, WY

Sacred Heart University, Center for Contemporary Art, Fairfield, CT


1997

Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Two Person Exhibition--Two Visions with Lynn Campion, Anne Reed Gallery,

Ketchum, ID


1996

I. Wolk Gallery, Napa, CA

Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY (poster available)

Susan Duval Gallery, Aspen, CO


GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010

Paris Gibson Museum, Great Falls Montana

Coors Invitational Exhibition, Denver, CO

VC Gallery of Fine Art, Sedona, AZ

Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT

Watts Fine Art, Indianapolis, IN

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT


2009

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO

Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody, WY

511 Gallery, Lake Placid, NY

Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID


2008

"Yosemite: Art of an American Icon," Traveling Exhibit

Eitlejorg Museum of the American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN

"Out West: The Great American Landscape," Traveling Exhibit

Missoula Museum, Missoula, MT

511 Gallery, New York

Boise Art Museum Idaho Triennial - Traveling Exhibit

Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

Visions West Gallery, Denver

Visions West Gallery, Livingston


2007

511 Gallery, Lake Placid, NY

Boise Art Museum

Portland Art Museum

Gail Severn Gallery, Sun Valley

"Out West: The Great American Landscape," Traveling Exhibit

Meridian International Center, Cafritz Gallery, Washington D.C.

National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China

Urumqi Art Museum, Urumqi, China

Shanxi Art Museum, Xi'an, China

Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai Painting Institute, Shanghai, China

Qingdao Modern Art Centre, Qingdao, China

Guangzhou Museum, Guangzho, China

Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre, Hong Kong, China

"Yosemite: Art of an American Icon," Traveling Exhibit

Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA

Nevada Art Museum, Reno, NV


2006

"Yosemite: Art of an American Icon," Traveling Exhibit

Autry National Center, Los Angeles, CA

"Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park,"

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA

Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

"Crosscurrents in Printmaking", Wheatdog Studio & Gallery, Kansas City, MO

Group Show, New Museum Addition, Denver Museum


2005

"Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park,"

Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA

"About Paint," Westport Arts Center, Westport, CT

"Montana Connections," Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

US Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID


2004

"Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in America's First National Park,"

Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA, Touring

"Best of the West exhibition," Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA

Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID


2003

"Eloquent Flower VII," Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Botanica Fine Art, Bozeman, MT


2002

Montana State University, Billings, MT - 75th Anniversary, Alumni Exhibit

Custer County Art Center, Miles City, MT - Western Art Roundup Exhibit

AVC Contemporary Arts Gallery, New York, NY

Laura Russo Gallery, Portland, OR

Parchman Stremmel Gallery, San Antonio, TX

Vanier Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ

Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN

Big Horn Gallery, Cody, WY


2001

Big Horn Gallery, Cody, WY

Botanica Fine Art, Bozeman, MT

Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV


2000

Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL

Custer Country Art Center, Miles City, MT

Friesen Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV

Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA - Northwest Views, Selection from the Safeco Collection

University of Montana, Missoula, MT


1999

Holter Museum, Helena, MT

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

Leedy-Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO

Outward Bound, "American Art at the Brink of the Twenty-First Century," Meridian International Center, Washington, DC, Work lent by Mobil Corporation. Touring: Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Singapore

International Exhibition for the US Ambassador's residence in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa - Part of the Art in Embassies Program


1998

Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY

Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT

Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN

Cheney Cowles Museum, Spokane, WA

Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

Leedy-Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO

University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY


1997

Art Museum, Missoula, MT

Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT

Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY

Missoula Museum of Art, Missoula, MT

Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY

Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, TX

Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV

Beall Park Art Center, Bozeman, MT


1996

Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY

Cody Museum, Cody, WY

Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Leedy-Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO

Parchman Stremmel Gallery, San Antonio, TX

Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV

Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

McLaren Markowitz Gallery, Boulder, CO

Topeka Public Library, Topeka, Kansas, Prints from Lawrence Lithography Workshop

Cornish College of Art, Seattle, WA


PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

Albrecht-Kemper, St. Joseph, MO

Apple Computer, Inc., Saratoga, CA

Arco Corporation, Los Angeles CA; Philadelphia Pennsylvania

Bank of America, San Francisco, CA

Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID

Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, Cody, WY

Carnation Company, Los Angeles, CA

Cheney Cowles Museum, Spokane, WA

Churchill Arts Council, Fallon, NV

Citadel Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ

Clorox Corporation, San Francisco, CA

Custer County Art Center, Miles City, MT

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN

El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

Eureka Opera House, Eureka, NV

Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis MN and Helena, MT

First Interstate Bank, Las Vegas, NV

Frederick R. Weisman Company, Los Angeles, CA

Frito-Lay Corporation, Dallas, TX

Goddard Center for Performing and Visual Arts, Ardmore, OK

Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA

Hallie Ford Museum of Art-Willamette University, Salem, OR

Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO

Hallmark Corporation, Kansas City, MO

Harrah's Enterprises, Reno, NV

Hockaday Art Center, Kalispell, MT

Holter Museum, Helena, MT

International Business Machines

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Marriot Corporation, San Antonio, TX

Merck Corporation, West Point, PA

Michener Collection, Austin, TX

Missoula Museum of the Arts, Missoula, MT

Mobil Oil, New York, NY

Moran Eye Institute, Salt Lake City, UT

Mulvane Art Museum, KS

Nestles Corporation, Los Angeles, CA

Nordstrom, Seattle, WA

North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

North Dakota State University Memorial Union Gallery, Fargo, ND

Northwest Museum of Art & Culture, Spokane, WA

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

Omaha National Bank, Omaha, NE

Palm Desert Museum, Palm Desert, CA

Paris Gibson Museum, Great Falls, MT

Pillsbury Corporation, Minneapolis, MN

Progressive Corporation, Pepper Pike, OH

Quad Graphics, West Allis, WI

Rayovac Corporation, Madison, WI

Robert Redford

Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT

Saint Lukes Hospital, Ketchum, ID

San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, CA

Sheldon Memorial Museum, Lincoln, NE

Sierra Pacific Power, Reno, NV

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Springfield Art Museum

Stanford University Hospital, Stanford, CA

Ringo Starr

Topeka Public Library, Topeka, KS

United Airlines, Chicago, IL

United Missouri Bank, Kansas City, MO

University Hospital, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

University of Kansas School of Arts, Lawrence, KS

University of Nevada - Reno, Knowledge Center

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

University of North Dakota, Fargo, ND

University of Texas, Austin, TX

University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY

US Bank

Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT