The Rungius Medals…September 25, 2016 Greetings,
Carl Rungius (1869-1959) was an academically-trained German artist who became recognized as being North America’s master portrayer of wildlife. The Museum created these bronze medals as the Carl Rungius Commemorative Medallion Collection, each of the four medals depicts different North American animals, the elk, grizzly, bighorn sheep, and white tail deer, based on images selected from oil paintings by Rungius. For me this is a very special honor because Rungius has been a huge influence on my artistic career. As it turns out, two days before receiving these medals I was in the archives of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada studying several boxes of Rungius’ drawings. Rungius’ artwork, and especially his drawings, appeals to me because they demonstrate the European traditional academic drawing techniques that he learned under Paul Mayerheim at the Kunstakademie in Berlin before coming to the USA in 1894. The Glenbow Museum has such an extensive collection of Rungius’ drawings that I was able to see his academic drawings done during his training at the Kunstakademie, drawings from live animals at the Berlin zoo during his academic years, and drawings he did of North American wildlife in the Rocky Mountains regions of Canada and the USA. Rungius’ European academic training was quite evident in his drawings and greatly appealed to me because of the decades of research I have done on the traditional drawing materials and techniques of European master artists. The traditional Academies of Art, which existed since the time of Leonardo da Vinci, began closing during the early 20th century as the world’s tastes moved away from representational art into periods of expressionism, abstraction, and other modernist movements. As a result we have lost the knowledge of generations of artists who knew and could teach the traditional techniques learned in the curriculum of these great academies. If you have any questions, comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
The National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Western Visions exhibition…August 22, 2016 Greetings, once more, My next exhibition is the 29th annual Western Visions show and sale at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which runs from September 9 - October 9, 2016 and has an assortment of special events scheduled on September 15-16, 2016. Western Visions routinely draws an international crowd to this critically-acclaimed exhibition and the Museum is a major hub for art lovers, wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts, and serious art collectors. More than 200 paintings and sculptures by 100 of the world’s top artists, carefully curated by the Museum’s staff, who are designated in this exhibition as the Wild 100. On Thursday, September 15, 2016 at 6 pm there will be the Wild 100 West Artist Party in which patrons have an opportunity to view the art, place bids, and mingle with the artists before the big sale occurs. On Friday, September 16, 2015 the doors will open at 5:00 pm for an evening of hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and live jazz with the final opportunity to place bids prior to the closing of the auction. I typically try to couple this important exhibition with several days of serious field studies of the charismatic megafauna and beautiful landscapes in the Greater Yellowstone Region and return home with many new drawings and en plein air oil paintings, all of which will be valuable field references to use in the studio to create new oil paintings over the coming year. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is located at 2820 Rungius Road in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.For more information on Western Visions please contact the Museum at 800-313-9553, or visit the Western Visions’ website at: If you have any questions, comments, or if you would like to know what artwork I will have in the exhibition, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
The prestigious 42st annual Birds in Art exhibition, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum…August 10, 2016 Greetings, I am very pleased and honored to announce that I have received an invitation to be in the internationally-renowned 41st annual Birds in Art exhibition at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. Since 1976, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum has organized Birds in Art annually as their flagship exhibition to present the very best artistic interpretations of birds and their related subject matter. Three simple words – birds in art – took on a life of their own when they became a prestigious Woodson Art Museum exhibition title. Over the years, Birds in Art has grown into what is recognized around the world as the exhibition that sets the standard internationally for avian art. The Museum’s staff describes their vision as …”long venerated for embodying freedom, grace, and beauty in flight, birds continually provide creative inspiration to exceed limits of earthbound human existence. As we aspire to sing, soar, and preen like them adorned in brilliant attire, avian art inspires in endless ways. When talented artists from throughout the world strive to be among those chosen for the internationally renowned Birds in Art exhibition, the resulting depictions are breathtaking. The 41st annual exhibition celebrates avian marvels through fresh interpretations in original paintings, sculptures, and graphics by 112 artists from throughout the world”. The Museum’s staff believes that the Birds in Art phenomenon has a lot to do with serendipity and even more to do with the remarkable talents of the artists who present their very best work interpreting birds and their related subject matter and can be credited for the success of Birds in Art. The artists invited to exhibit in this years’ Birds in Art exhibition were selected from around the world including France, Holland, Sweden, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, India, South Africa, Italy, Australia, Canada, the USA, and more. The rare invitation to be part of this prestigious exhibition is indeed a treasured event. The 41st annual Birds in Art exhibition opens on Saturday, September 10, 2016 and will provide varied opportunities to interact with more than sixty Birds in Art artists visiting from throughout the world. A 132 page fully illustrated catalogue accompanies Birds in Art and will be available in September, 2016. The exhibition will continue at the Museum through November 27, 2016. The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum is located at 700 N. 12th Street in Wausau, Wisconsin, and their phone is: 715-845-7010. Further information is available from the Museum’s website, which incidentally also features my drawing of an American avocet, at: If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
Cheyenne Old West Museum…June 21, 2016 Greetings, once more, It gives me great pleasure to announce that I will be in the prestigious 36th Annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show and Sale at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum. This exhibition, which is referred to as the Governor’s Invitational, will feature the artwork of the country’s top western and wildlife artists who are included in this exhibition by personal invitation from Wyoming State Governor, Matthew H. Mead. There will be an Opening Reception on Thursday, July 21st, which kicks off with a preview at 3:30 pm at the Museum. This is followed by a reception at the Wyoming Governor’s Residence, to mingle with the Artists, the Governor and First Lady with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on the lawn. The show & sale officially opens at 6:00 pm, and includes a ‘Buy it Now’ option, enabling patrons to immediately purchase artwork. The festivities also include dinner, live music, and a chance to kick up your heels! This noteworthy exhibition celebrates the heritage of the American West in all of its grandeur, including its culture, its magnificent scenery, and its wildlife through impressive works of art. For more than a century, Cheyenne Frontier Days has preserved the western way of life, the rich traditions of rodeo, and the spirit of community involvement. The Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show and Sale ranks among the most respected and prestigious western art exhibitions in the Rocky Mountain region. I will have five pieces in this exhibition with subjects ranging from bull moose, American avocets, to long-billed curlews. The Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum is located in the Northeast corner of Frontier Park at 4610 N. Carey Avenue, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For more information, or to purchase tickets to this prestigious exhibition you can call the Museum at (307) 778-7290, or visit the exhibition’s website at: http://www.cfdartshow.org If you have any questions, comments, or if you would like to know more about the artwork I will have in this important exhibition, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
The Philadelphia Museum of Art…May 27, 2016 Greetings, once again, I received a letter from Timothy Rub, the Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Enclosed with the letter was a Collection Artist lifetime membership card. With the issuance of this card the Philadelphia Museum of Art became the first encyclopedic art museum to issue lifetime memberships to living artists whose artwork is in the Museum’s permanent collection. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired two of my drawings, which are housed in their Department of Prints and Drawings. One is a complex metalpoint drawing based on an analysis of the different metalpoint styli used in 1435 by Jan van Eyck on his drawing, Portrait of a Cardinal, felt to be Cardinal Niccolo Albergati. I duplicated the alloys, melted, and cast metalpoint styli to match the exact ones used by van Eyck and used them to create my drawing entitled, Study of a Grizzly Bear's Stride (gold stylus, electrum gold stylus, and silver stylus with Italian white marble heightening on French orange ocher prepared wove paper). The other is a drawing in natural black chalk entitled, Frontal Study of a Dall Ram (natural black chalk on handmade blue laid paper). The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a world-renowned collection of over 227,000 objects. The Museum strives to bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative activities—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. Their goal is to connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. The Museum began as a legacy of the great Centennial Exhibition of 1876, held in Fairmount Park. At the conclusion of the celebrations, Memorial Hall, which had been constructed as the Exhibition's art gallery, remained open as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art "for the improvement and enjoyment of the people of the Commonwealth". At the close of the Centennial, appeal letters were sent out to the various exhibitors asking for donations of objects to the new Museum's permanent collection. Beyond these appeals, gifts and bequests began to reach Memorial Hall from citizens who saw in the new institution both a continuation of the Centennial's ideals and an opportunity to provide the public and those in industry with objects of good design and craftsmanship. Soon, the collections would expand to encompass fine and decorative art objects as well, including those made in Europe and Japan. I will have to admit that with my new Collection Artist lifetime membership card, I do not have many excuses not to return to Philadelphia to revisit these works, as well as study the fine collections of the Museum. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
Grand Teton National Park in art: Painting the park from Thomas Moran to today…May 12, 2016 Greetings, The prestigious National Museum of Wildlife Art, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is opening an exhibition in honor of the National Park Service’s Centennial year. This exhibition is entitled, Grand Teton National Park in art: Painting the park from Thomas Moran to today. The exhibition features paintings from the collections of the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Grand Teton National Park, and select private collections. The exhibition opens tomorrow May 13, 2016 and will run through September 5, 2016. The exhibition will feature paintings by Thomas Moran from 1871, paintings from the Grand Teton National Park’s collection, John Fery’s early works of the Tetons, as well as paintings chronicling more than 100 years of artistic expression of the Tetons. I am greatly honored that this exhibition includes one of my oil paintings entitled, Room with a view, (oil on Belgian linen, 30 x 24 inches). The National Museum of Wildlife Art acquired this painting in 2014 as their Trustees' Purchase Award. This is a large oil painting of an osprey in its nest atop a tree overlooking, The Grand, which is the tallest peak in the Grand Tetons range. My oil painting is part of a series of paintings and drawings I have done depicting The Grand Teton. A drawing from my Grand Series was acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and another has recently been acquired by the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. The National Park Service’s centennial will kick off a second century of stewardship of America's national parks and engaging communities through recreation, conservation, and historic preservation programs. The National Museum of Wildlife Art received official designation as the “National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States” by order of Congress and it has an internationally acclaimed collection whose purpose is to inspire public appreciation of fine art, wildlife, and humanity's relationship with nature. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
The Harvard University Art Museums…March 28, 2016 Greetings, once more,
My research on this topic was recently published in February 2016 by the J. Paul Getty Museum Press as a lengthy chapter in the exhibition catalogue entitled Noir: The Romance of Black in 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints, which accompanies the same-named exhibition that is currently hanging in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles through May 15th, 2016. The Getty’s Noir exhibition and its scholarly catalogue were favorably reviewed in the March/April issue of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, which included the following citation: “This aesthetic phenomenon has never been studied from the perspective of materials before, so it was perhaps only the Getty, with its unique mix of art historians, conservation scientists, and other scholars, who could bring this project to fruition….The project has been overseen by senior curator of drawings Lee Hendrix, and its groundbreaking publication contains, among much else, an essay by the New Mexico-based artist and scientist Timothy David Mayhew, an expert on the history of drawing materials and techniques.” Harvard’s Fogg Museum opened in 1895 on the northern edge of Harvard Yard in a modest Beaux-Arts building designed by Richard Morris Hunt, twenty-one years after the President and Fellows of Harvard College appointed Charles Eliot Norton the first professor of art history in America. It was made possible when, in 1891, Mrs. Elizabeth Fogg gave a gift in memory of her husband to build “…an Art Museum to be called and known as the William Hayes Fogg Museum of Harvard College.” In 1927, the Fogg Museum moved to its current home at 32 Quincy Street. The Fogg Museum is a joint art museum and teaching facility and was the first purpose-built structure for the specialized training of art scholars, conservators, and museum professionals in North America. The Fogg Museum is now renowned for its holdings of European paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings dating from the Middle Ages to the present. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
Making Marks, Drawings from the collection of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum…March 4, 2016 Greetings, It is with great pleasure to announce a fascinating upcoming exhibition entitled, Making Marks, an exhibition of avian drawings from the collection of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. This exhibition will feature drawings from the Museum’s extensive drawing collection, which numbers over 9048 sheets. Making Marks will comprise approximately 60 drawings; all created over a span of seventy-five years, curated by Jane Weinke, the Museum’s Curator of Collections. Included will be works in graphite, ink, chalk, charcoal, watercolor, and pastel covering drawing styles ranging from finely rendered to loosely sketched, encompassing a wide scope of artists’ impressions and offering insight into how artists observe, contemplate, and study their subjects to develop compositions. Artists featured in the exhibition include George Miksch Sutton, Arthur Singer, Walter J. Breckenridge, Roger Tory Peterson, Henry Bismuth, and I am very honored that the exhibition will include some of my own drawings from the Museum’s collection as well. The selected drawings will be organized by themes and will include finely detailed avian illustrations, anatomical studies, sketches, and depictions of birds interacting in their natural environment. Making Marks opens April 9th, 2016 at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum at 700 N. 12th Street in Wausau, Wisconsin, and their phone is: 715-845-7010. Further information is available from the Museum’s website: It will be a great opportunity to see this exhibition if you can because I am extremely pleased to announce that the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau was just recognized as one of 15 museum finalists for the 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Service by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community. For 22 years, the award has celebrated institutions that demonstrate extraordinary and innovative approaches to public service and are making a difference for individuals, families, and communities. The National Medal winners will be named later this spring, and representatives from winning institutions will travel to Washington, D.C., to be honored at the National Medal award ceremony. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
The J. Paul Getty Museum…January 3, 2016 Greetings on this New Year, For the past nearly three years I have had the great honor and privilege to work with the distinguished curators and conservators of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles as a consultant on traditional drawing materials and techniques on an important upcoming exhibition of 19th century French drawings and prints. I will admit that this role is very unusual for a professional artist but it came about due to my decades of research into the traditional drawing materials and techniques of the master artists, which lead to numerous lectures at major museums and several published peer-reviewed manuscripts in scholarly international journals. I am very pleased to announce that this long-awaited exhibition entitled, Noir: The Romance of Black in 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints, willopen at the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Getty Center West Pavilion on February 9, 2016 and will continue through May 15, 2016. In the early 19th century in France there was a proliferation of new drawing materials as well as a wide variety of techniques and tools for working with them. These new drawing materials and techniques were largely brought about by innovations related to the manufacturing capabilities of the Industrial Revolution responding to critical shortages in the supply of important traditional drawing materials that had been in use for centuries. Painters and printmakers alike were drawn to the monochromatic tonal properties of a variety of new black drawing materials as a way to study and address the complexities of tonal values and the important considerations of composition and design for depicting landscapes, interior scenes, and other subjects. As the century progressed, French artists also began depicting shadowy, often nocturnal or twilight scenes in which forms emerge and sink back into darkness. This quest for darkened realms accompanied an exploration of new forms of subject matter, such as dream states and non-idealized representations of the poor and working class. Using drawings and prints from the Getty's permanent collection as well as loans from private and public Los Angeles collections, this exhibition examines how important artists such as Adolphe Appian, Maxime Lalanne, Auguste Allongé, Léon Augustin Lhermitte, Rodolphe Bresdin, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, and others championed these new materials and techniques. My contributions to this important exhibition included writing the chapter on traditional 19th century French drawing materials and techniques for the exhibition catalog recently published by the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Getty Press, entitled Noir: The Romance of Black in 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints. Additionally, I worked with the talented professionals of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Digital Media department to produce a video demonstrating the complexities of the mid-19th century French drawing technique known as dessin au fusain, which will run as a continuous loop during the exhibition. The exhibition will also include a didactic display case of a wide variety of traditional 19th century drawing materials that I have donated to the Museum. I am additionally honored that the exhibition will include one of my own drawings entitled, The Grand Teton, which was done using the traditional drawing materials, tools, and techniques of mid-19th century French dessin au fusain. I am scheduled to give two presentations on traditional 19th century French drawing materials and techniques during the exhibition’s opening on February 9th, one at noon and one at 2 pm. If you live in, or plan visit, the Los Angeles area at that time it would be great to see you. This exhibition at J. Paul Getty Museum’s Getty Center West Pavilion is located at North Sepulveda Blvd and the Getty Center Drive on the West side of Los Angeles. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Best regards, Timothy
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At a recent award ceremony held on September 16, 2016 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I was presented with one of the Museum’s highest honors, the four bronze Rungius Medals. These bronze medals were presented for my winning the Red Smith Award for Best in Show at the Museum’s 2015 Western Visions exhibition, but had only recently been cast.
I am extremely honored to be invited to give a presentation at Harvard University’s prestigious Fogg Museum on the traditional drawing materials and techniques of 19th century French dessin au fusain. My presentation is scheduled for the morning of April 21st, 2016, and will be a technical presentation geared for the conservators, curators, scientists, and art historians of the Harvard University Art Museums. 