Best rediscovery of hidden treasures

Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art director Cydney Payton, together with freelance curator and art collector John Woodward, last year presented Vanguard Art in Colorado, a show that revealed a hidden art-historical fact: In Colorado, as in New York at the same time, a post-war generation of painters and sculptors embraced abstract expressionism and created a truly American-style art. Payton and Woodward selected impressive pieces by the likes of Vance Kirkland, Herbert Bayer, Charles Bunnell, Emerson Woelffer, Mary Chenoweth, Al Wynne, Ken Goehring, George Cecil Carter and many others, all borrowed from several private collections and institutions such as the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the Vance Kirkland Museum. Nothing came out of the Denver Art Museum, since relevant Colorado material once held by that establishment has long since been sold off. But as the DAM snoozes, smaller venues like BMoCA occasionally fill the void. Vanguard Art in Colorado contributed one of the best art exhibits in memory to the local scene.