HOME     ARTISTS       GALLERY      EVENTS    CONTACT

3001 E. Skyline Drive Suite 127    520.529.7349  Fax 520.529.7354

BILL MOOMEY RENAISSANCE MAN By Mary Elsa Taylor

A visit to Bill Moomey’s studio takes you through a long shaded tunnel of massive oaks, past a spring-fed pond that is home to herons and cranes and wood ducks—up a winding lane to a rustic hilltop structure that overlooks a breathtaking vista of rolling wooded hills.      When you arrive you’ll probably find Moomey at work on one of the many half-finished canvases that line the walls of his spacious studio, along with saddles, rodeo buckles and athletic trophies. You’ll be met by a fit, clean-cut man, much younger than his years. His conspicuous enthusiasm for life will make you feel like an old friend. If you ask about his horses, he’ll reminisce through two pots of coffee, talking with great authority on almost any subject.      Bill was born in York, Nebraska, in 1926 and from an early age had a passion for drawing. Although those windswept prairies offered little opportunity for a formal art education, as fortune would have it, Terrence Duren, a well-known New York artist, was forced by ill health to move to Shelby, Nebraska, where his sisters could care for him. He saw some of Bill’s animal drawings at a local fair and offered to teach him to paint in exchange for preparing canvases for Duren’s work. From that moment on, Bill was ready to challenge the world.      A football scholarship to the University of Nebraska provided Bill’s first opportunity to study art on a formal basis. Graduating with honors, he earned a fellowship to the University of Colorado where he studied with world-renowned painter Ben Shahn, taught painting and design and earned his graduate degrees      While in Colorado, Moomey worked with the State Fish and Game Department, guided hunting parties into the remote areas of the Rocky Mountains, providing wildlife footage for Disney films. During this time, Moomey wrote and filmed the award-winning motion pictures, Safari, Rodeo, Cougar, and On the Fifth Day, a documentary on the history of the horse.       In 1952, Moomey accepted the directorship of the Denver Art Academy and was charter president of the Denver Art Directors Club and co-founder of the International Design Conference in Aspen. He illustrated the book, Trampled Terraces, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ray McConell, and wrote and illustrated the popular book, Dad Always Said, about growing up in the Nebraska cattle country. He was president of Moomey Ward Creative, a highly successful design studio, and was recipient of the coveted Brahm Award four consecutive years.      Today Moomey is a nationally recognized painter, sculptor and designer. He is currently working on a nine-foot monumental bronze of three gorillas for the renowned Milwaukee Zoo. Scores of Moomey’s early package designs are still found in retail stores throughout the world.      Of his extraordinary versatility, Moomey says, “I let the subject matter tell me how it should be treated. I tend to paint in greater detail when the subject is of a more sensitive nature. It’s as though I want to get inside the painting in order to have a closer look. The more intense the subject becomes, the bigger the brushes and the broader the strokes. That's probably why it seems as though I have such a variety of styles. If you examine my work closely, however, I think you'll find that I follow the same structural principles in every painting, and most of the variation is in the surface treatment.      “When I was in school we learned the fundamentals of drawing and composition long before technique and self-expression. I'm somewhat dismayed that today many schools give less attention to those academic disciplines in favor of experimentation. The emphasis on doing something that no one has done before has driven many young artists to such extremes as dumping a truckload of rocks in the center of a museum floor and presenting it as a piece of sculpture. Or hanging a framed canvas with nothing on it.      “I support the pure unencumbered qualities of a Mondrian or a Pollack or a Motherwell; however, I prefer to incorporate those same underlying elements of color, shape and texture into a format that is more biological, more compatible with social experience.”       Moomey continues, “I’m afraid I would quickly lose interest in creating the same painting over and over again simply by rearranging shapes and colors. Many galleries espouse that kind of simplicity and directness, as it gives an artist a quick unschooled identification that is of value to collectors but it just doesn't seem to work for me. I guess I’ve always been more interested in the communicative values of my work than the degree of my identification with it.”       Asked if he agreed with some artists who describe painting as “hard work,” Bill replied, “Only if it’s done right!”       Bill Moomey—conservationist, cowboy, intellectual, past board chairman of the renowned Milwaukee Zoo, past national director of the American Quarter Horse Association, big game hunter, designer, sculptor, painter: Renaissance Man.

on display at The Max Gallery click on image for larger picture

The Max Gallery 3001 E. Skyline Drive Suite127 520.529.7349 Fax: 520.529.7354