68 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2013
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Duke behind the lens.
All images Copyright Duke Beardsley
and the Duke Beardsley Studio
e
Artist Profile
Duke Beardsley
Denver, Colorado
Type of Artist: painter - website: dukebeardsleystudio.com
Duke Beardsley would like to avoid being pigeonholed in terms of
what kind or school of painter he is. Some say he is a pop impressionist,
others call him an Artist of the New West. He emphasizes that it doesn’t
particularly concern or interest him where he falls into the lexicon of
American painters. What he is, essentially, is an amazing figurative painter
whose work sizzles with color and energy, often with themes that include
cowboys, cattle and horses. Duke thinks outside the box, outside the
frame and his art reflects the way he reinvents his vision.
“Autumn Call” – 52 x 52 Oil.
“Fresh Horses” – 60 x 48 Oil.
Was your career path influenced by your family
being ranchers?
I spent a lot of weekends and summers working
cattle, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a rancher. I
started drawing very young, got a degree in art history at
Middlebury College (Vermont) and visited museums in
Boston and New York where the pop art scene blew me
away. I ended up in Southern California – I was trying to
go to medical school, but that didn’t work out. A friend
said, “You have to see the Art Center College of Design
in Pasadena.” I got hit by lightning when I walked in the
door – that’s when I knew I had to paint. When a gallery
in Denver gave me my first show, it wasn’t long before
other galleries came looking and I was on my way.
How did you get sizzling colors into your paintings
of cowboys and cattle?
Andy Warhol and all the top artists from the heyday
of the pop movement influenced me with their saturated
palettes. Another big influence was Richard Diebenkorn,
from California. So many people influenced me. I really
liked Frederick Remington and Charles Russell when I
was growing up. When I was in the East I was turned on
by a lot of what I saw, but I got liberated in California. So
many of the California painters, like Ray Turner, are not
afraid to push their colors.
What are your goals?
I’ve been in the game for 15 years and I hear artists
say that they don’t bother about the business of making
art – that’s BS! If you’re going to make a living painting,
then you have to consider marketing and what will get
people to want to be around your art. I pay my mortgage
and the shoes on my kids’ feet by painting. You have
to come up with something people like, because if they
don’t like it, you don’t eat. I want to make good art that
is recognized as mine. The icing on the cake is the
recognition, the awards, the accolades and collections,
but the goal is to keep painting, to pay my mortgage and
stay afloat, and to keep painting.
“Rooster Moon” – 56 x 42 Oil.
“Chapareras” – 30 x 48 Oil.
