Best Lesson in Colorado's Art History

Vance Kirkland: A Colorado Painter's Life -- Early Works and Beyond is more than a solo devoted to Colorado's most famous modernist. It's a big-picture look at the mid-twentieth-century art world in this state. In addition to Kirkland's paintings from the '30s to the '70s, the show features pieces by most of the other major artists working here during those decades, as well as fine examples of modern furniture and decorative art. Hugh Grant, the director of the Kirkland Museum, and Judy Steiner, a curator at the CHM, organized the exhibit, which is open through April 4. It was designed by David Newell, who did an admirable job, considering that he had to deal with way too much stuff for the size of the space.