Michael R. Grauer, Awards Judge
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
MrGrauer lectures on art, history, and culture across the American West. He was an invited speaker during the 2021 EnPleinAirTEXAS event, with a historical discussion of Plein Air painting leading up to the last 100 years of Plein Air painting in Texas. Michael was our 2022 Juror and we are delighted to welcome one of the leading western art historians in the United States as our 2023 Awards Judge!
Since 2018, Michael Grauer has served as the McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture and Curator of Cowboy Collections & Western Art at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. He has curated over 150 major exhibitions on Western art, culture, and history and authored more than 70 publications, including the Dictionary of Texas Artists, 1700-1945, Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man, and Making a Hand: The Art of H. D. Bugbee, which received the Western History Association Wrangler Award for Best Western Art Book for 2020.
Grauer worked at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, before becoming curator of art and Western heritage and associate director for curatorial affairs at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, from 1987 to 2018.
Grauer serves as president of the Western Cattle Trail Association; vice-president of the International Chisholm Trail Association; on the boards of the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the National Drovers Hall of Fame; is a member of the research committee for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth; on the Charles M. Russell catalogue raisonne committee and is a board member and on the executive committee for Westerners International.
A Kansas native, Michael Grauer holds the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art History, University of Kansas; the Master of Arts in Art History, SMU; and the Master of Arts in history, West Texas A&M University.
Michael Grauer 2021 Museum Talk - Click Here to Watch
Also, in 2021 the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts presented a video version of Twenty-four Hours with the Herd, Frank Reaugh’s seven-part pastel series depicting the West Texas plains as a backdrop to a cattle drive. Narration read by Michael Grauer.
Kathryn Mapes Turner, Juror
She will help celebrate our 10th year of EnPleinAirTEXAS by selecting the 2023 Competition Artists from artist submissions received through May 31, 2023
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Born in the mountain valley of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Kathryn Mapes Turner was the fourth generation to be raised on the Triangle X Ranch in Grand Teton National Park. She grew up riding the trails of the valley, learning wilderness lore and gaining an eye for landscape. Turner began studying art from noted local painters in her teens, then pursued a major in Studio Arts at the University of Notre Dame. She spent an influential semester in Rome, Italy and then studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C., later earning a Master’s degree from the University of Virginia.
Turner is now nationally recognized with top honors from the American Impressionist Society and the National Academy of Equine Art and the Southeast Wildlife Exposition as the 2017 Featured Artist. Her work has been showcased in the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Charlie Russell Museum, the Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West, The Phippen Museum, the Brinton Museum and the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum.
Turner believes that growing up in Grand Teton National Park, a place with such dramatic light and natural composition, gave her an intimate appreciation for art. She now travels all over the world, comfortable painting in watercolor and oil.
Turner Fine Art Gallery in Jackson Hole came to be when Kathryn wanted more than just the isolation of working in her studio and felt a calling to create a space to collaborate with other artists. She calls it life-giving and hosts artist from around the world to work together to bring installations to life.
“ My need to create flows from the privilege of participating in the miraculous nature of the creative process rather than rendering some notion of a perfect product. This process requires my presence, enthusiasm open-minded appreciation, playfulness, courage and honesty. In this way, creating art is transformative, universal and timeless.” -Kathryn Mapes Turner
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