Artist Tim Cox lassoes Prix de West Award

Art Business News, August, 2003

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum held its 30th-annual contemporary Western art exhibition in June. The event attracted 1,000 buyers, and more than $2.1 million worth of art was sold, according to organizers.

Artist Tim Cox of Bloomfield, N.M., received the museum's Prix de West Purchase Award for his oil painting "On To Better Pastures," which was purchased by the museum for its contemporary Western art gallery and will hang alongside work by previous Prix de West award winners such as Wilson Hurley, Gerald Balciar, James Reynolds, Howard Terpning, Clark Hulings, Grant Speed, Alan Houser and Bob Kuhn. Cox received a $5,000 cash award, 75 percent of the $20,000 purchase price and a medallion.

Cox, who has participated in the show for four years, focuses on real cowboys and ranchers in his paintings. "On To Better Pastures" depicts a modern cattle drive moving ahead of a storm. Of his winning painting, Cox said, "The entire time I was working on this painting, I was thinking about the vanishing way of life of the cowboy. There is a lot of symbolism in this painting." Cox's limited-edition prints are available through Toh-Atin Gallery in Durango, Colo.

Other award winners received a medallion and a $3,000 cash prize. The winning artists included William Acheff of Taos, N.M.; Walter Matia of Dickerson, Md.; Dave Wade from Cokeville, Wyo.; Bill Owen of Wickenburg, Ariz.; John Moyers of Santa Fe, N.M.; and Edward J. Fraughton from South Jordan, Utah.

During the weekend, attendees voted by secret ballot for their favorite works in the show. The recipient of the Nona Jean Hulsey Rumsey Buyer's Choice Award was sculptor Edward J. Fraughton from South Jordan, Utah, for "Home Is Where the Heart Is," a bronze of a family in a horse-drawn covered wagon.

The show, which continues through Sept. 7, displays more than 300 works of art by 90 artists working in oil, watercolor, colored pencil, bronze and stone.

For more information, call (405) 478-2250.