WAC223-Briscoe Western Art Museum

By Michael Clawson

Milestones

The Briscoe Western Art Museum marks 25 years of its popular and growing Night of Artists exhibition and sale.

Liz Jackson, president and CEO of the Briscoe Western Art Museum, can remember when the museums’ flagship Night of Artists exhibition was a smaller show, with a smaller cultural footprint in Western art circles. “I was at another museum then and I hadn’t even heard of Night of Artists. And I was a Texan! Then I saw that people thought of the show as more of a local event with some big-name artists,” Jackson says, noting that the exhibition has evolved dramatically over the years. “Could we have imagined where this show would go?

No. We had big dreams, but this show is on another level that we couldn’t have foreseen.”

Night of Artists , which celebrates a momentous 25 years in March, has become one of the can’t-miss events of the Western art circuit, on par with—and even topping, Jackson says—other major museum shows around the country. The charm of the show, and its growing allure to collectors, can be traced back to several key components: its festive party and gala that brings out top artists and collectors, the location of the museum along the San Antonio River Walk, the quality of the artwork and the roster of artists, which includes established stars as well as up-and-coming phenoms.

For Jackson, all of those apply, but there’s also a secret sauce: visitor experience. “There are a lot of things a museum can’t control. We can’t control the artists or their works. We’re at their

mercy as far as what comes through the doors. We can’t control sales, which is determined by the collectors. All we

can truly control is the experience of everybody who participates,” she says. “I personally love the idea of family,

and I want to create family wherever I am. I look at all the people who come to the show as brothers and sisters of the museum. They are family. And Night of Artists is them coming home for supper. That’s the environment and experience I want to create for guests.”

Jackson and her team, including show curator Tim Newton, will have that opportunity on March 27 and 28 when Night of Artists returns for the 25th edition of the show at the Texas museum. Eighty-five artists will be presenting more than 300 works, including nearly 70 small works.

Participating artists include Brandon Bailey, Thomas Blackshear II, Teal Blake, Shawn Cameron, G. Russell Case, Brent Cotton, C. Michael Dudash, Jerry Jordan, Kenny McKenna, Dean Mitchell, Don Oelze, Paul Rhymer, Matt Smith, Jeremy Winborg and many others. New artists for 2026 include Mike Boedges, Amery Bohling, Kevin Chupik, Phil Epp, Jon Flaming, Joshua LaRock, Joseph McGurl, Andrew Roda, Dave Santillanes and others. The roster for Night of Artists represents a fascinating cross-section of

the Western world with strong artists in both traditional and contemporary styles. Events kick off on March 27 with

morning tours of the exhibition with Newton, followed by afternoon art demos from Teresa Elliott and Daniel

Sprick, and then an evening reception and dinner that will feature the sale of the small works. The night will close with the live auction of selected pieces. (See our additional coverage of the live sale on Page 86.)

On March 28, beginning at 11 a.m., the museum will host the annual Collector’s Summit, titled “A Quarter Century of Western Art: A Legacy Remembered, A Future Imagined.” Panelists will include artist Kim Wiggins and Mark Sublette, owner of Medicine Man Gallery. That evening, starting at 5 p.m., is the preview, by-draw sale and party.

The museum is also bringing back its popular guarantee-to-purchase system. The system allows bidders to make a normal bid on a white bid slip, or to make a guarantee-to-purchase bid on a slip of a different color. When a white bid is drawn, the bidder will have to notify the museum they intend to purchase the work, or risk being passed over. When a guarantee-topurchase bid is drawn, that indicates to the museum that the bidder is an automatic “yes” on the artwork. The innovative system was rolled out last year and was an immediate hit, especially for wayward collectors who didn’t always wander back to pieces they bid on.

One of the returning artists to the

show is Don Oelze, who will be showing Camp at the Trading Post , a large winter scene with numerous figures and a majestic landscape in the background. “ Camp at the Trading Post is about those in-between moments when people stop long enough to rest, trade, talk and simply be,” he says. “This painting is a bit different from what I usually do, with a greater emphasis on the landscape and smaller figures. I wanted to show not only the activity of a busy camp, but also the immense setting and atmosphere that surrounds it.”

One of the new artists this year is landscape painter Amery Bohling. She will be showing Transient Light, a painting from Arizona’s most famous natural landmark. “When I first began painting the Grand Canyon, I became obsessed with weather. Not the calm moments,

but the in-between ones. Pre-storm. Poststorm. I learned to watch the forecasts closely and head up when a storm was already moving through, waiting for the clearing rather than the beginning.

Clearing light is fleeting, but it reveals something extraordinary,” she says. “During my weeks participating in the Celebration of Art at the Grand Canyon, storms would roll through unexpectedly.

If I was lucky, they would break near sunset, leaving low clouds and strange, shifting light. These are the moments I chase...It is not easy to work in these conditions. I have spent plenty of time standing in snow with frozen paint, or watching my palette turn into a small swimming pool because I thought painting in the rain might work. Physically, it is uncomfortable. Visually, it is thrilling. The excitement of what is unfolding in front of you outweighs everything else. Transient Light is about that pursuit. The brief window when weather, light, and landscape align.”

William Haskell also plays with light and land in The Long Ride to Redemption . “In this painting, a lone cowboy on horseback stands in the foreground, his figure silhouetted against the open land as he gazes across a winding river toward a small church in the distance,” Haskell says. “The river acts as both a physical and symbolic divide,

separating the rugged, untamed world of the cowboy from the quiet promise of refuge and faith represented by the church’s steeple. Earthly tones and wide space evoke the stillness of the frontier, while the cowboy’s pause suggests reflection, caught between motion and rest, wilderness and sanctuary.”

Greg Beecham keeps his thoughts short and sweet. “With Ever Vigilant, I concerned myself with an effort toward compositional unity via repetition of shapes and color,” he says.

Kevin Chupik, whose Western paintings call back to the middle of the 20th century, when cowboys were interacting with the modern world in unexpected places. One of his newest works is Cowboy Noir, a moody nighttime scene in front of a diner. “This intersection of road, train and diner become a Hopperesque character sketch of quiet emotion,” he says. (Chupik refers to painter Edward Hopper, but it also applies to actor Dennis

Hopper, who photographed the West in the 1960s and 1970s.) “An interior and exterior view are both lit by the glow of a desert moon, as a contemplative cowboy stops mid-street after a late-night meal. The dominant blue-green cast lends a palpable surreal tinge to the crossing, as if to amplify his personal interior mindscape. The classic Western nocturne is slightly turned on its axis, towards a more contemporary destination.”

The entire Night of Artists exhibition will remain on view through May 10, but collectors are encouraged to participate in the opening weekend, when the bulk of the artwork will be sold.

Night of Artists

March 27-28, 2026

Briscoe Western Art Museum 210 W. Market Street San Antonio, TX 78205

(210) 299-4499

www.briscoemuseum.org

By Michael Clawson

Texas Live

The Briscoe Museum shines a bright spotlight on the live auction component at the annual Night of Artists show.

Every March, the Night of Artists exhibition at the Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, throws two sales: a fixed-price box draw that is the main event, and a live auction that is part of a dinner the night before. Both events have performed well, but this year’s live auction is getting renewed attention.

For starters, the museum is rolling out even more bidding options for those who can’t attend the show. The auction component will be viewable online and will have proxy, telephone and online bidding.

The sale will also feature a carefully curated selection from the exhibition. The auction lots are meant to be a

cross-section of the event, and “great pains were made to choose the perfect pieces,” says Liz Jackson, the museum’s president and CEO.

“The show is on the very edge of Western art. We want to expose new buyers to these great pieces,” Jackson says. “This isn’t just some art that came from your granddaddy’s credenza in his study. There is a whole new world of the West out there. The artwork in the show, and the sale, should really resonate with younger buyers, including those who have never felt inspired by the West. Here at the Briscoe, we’re

giving them a different flavor, which is something that makes this genre so unique.”

Artists with works in the auction include Craig Tennant, Gladys Roldande-Moras, Sean Michael Chavez, Jim Vogel, Don Oelze, Bruce Lawes, Mark Boedges, Ron Rencher, Greg Beecham, Andrew Roda and others.

“Eight years ago, we added the art auction component. It’s been a big game changer. Based on the reaction we got, it was overwhelmingly positive. So we doubled down on that,” Jackson says. “This year we’re really investing in

promoting and publicizing it for our 25th year of the show.”

For complete details, including how to register to bid for the sale, refer to the museum’s website. The sale will take place on Friday, March 27, at 7 p.m. Central Time.

Night of Artists Auction

March 27, 2026, 7 p.m.

Briscoe Western Art Museum 210 W. Market Street, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 299-4499

www.briscoemuseum.org