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Best example of the work ethic as applied to the fine arts

Chuck Parson

This past year, it seemed that Denver sculptor Chuck Parson was everywhere at once. His work was displayed at the Arvada Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Museum of Outdoor Art, the Gallery at Guiry's and in the sculpture court at Artyard. And that was just around here. Parson was also feted to a solo last fall at Wyoming's Nicolaysen Museum, and he created a large installation for Chicago's Pier Show earlier this summer. Even more astounding than his participation in so many art exhibits is the medium he prefers -- mammoth sculptures made of such minimally portable materials as concrete and steel beams, which would seem to discourage all that traveling. But the best thing about Parson's sculpture is not that it's so easy to find, but that it's so very good.

Best photo show -- solo

Hal D. Gould: Visual Legacy

After fifty years as a professional photographer and more than 35 years as an exhibition organizer, Hal Gould finally allowed someone to give him a solo show. Presented at Gould's own gallery, the Camera Obscura, last winter, the exhibit was organized by Loretta Young Gautier and Mollie Uhl Eaton, which marks another first: Visual Legacy was the only show ever presented at the twenty-year-old gallery not to have been put together by Gould himself. The best pieces in this large and important show were those that took up the theme of the vanishing West, a favorite subject for Gould, who addressed it again and again in works dating from the 1950s to the present.

Best photo show -- solo

Hal D. Gould: Visual Legacy

After fifty years as a professional photographer and more than 35 years as an exhibition organizer, Hal Gould finally allowed someone to give him a solo show. Presented at Gould's own gallery, the Camera Obscura, last winter, the exhibit was organized by Loretta Young Gautier and Mollie Uhl Eaton, which marks another first: Visual Legacy was the only show ever presented at the twenty-year-old gallery not to have been put together by Gould himself. The best pieces in this large and important show were those that took up the theme of the vanishing West, a favorite subject for Gould, who addressed it again and again in works dating from the 1950s to the present.

Best photo show -- group

Photography and the Creative Process

This large show, occupying both the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and the adjacent Carol Keller Gallery, was associated with a conference by the same name held at the Auraria campus. The exhibit featured the work of the conference's speakers, including such well-known local photographers as conference chairman Ron Wohlauer and his peers Ray Whiting, Eric Paddock, Bernard Mendoza and William Sutton. The show was thrown together at the last minute by CPAC Exhibition Director Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff with gallery owner Carol Keller -- and they couldn't have done it any better if they'd had a year's prep time.

Best photo show -- group

Photography and the Creative Process

This large show, occupying both the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and the adjacent Carol Keller Gallery, was associated with a conference by the same name held at the Auraria campus. The exhibit featured the work of the conference's speakers, including such well-known local photographers as conference chairman Ron Wohlauer and his peers Ray Whiting, Eric Paddock, Bernard Mendoza and William Sutton. The show was thrown together at the last minute by CPAC Exhibition Director Lisbeth Neergaard Kohloff with gallery owner Carol Keller -- and they couldn't have done it any better if they'd had a year's prep time.

Best show to highlight a Playboy photographer

Ted Williams, Tone Poems

Now, calm down. The Playboy photographer in question, Ted Williams, made a career not from those famous cheesecake centerfolds, but by recording, in classic black-and-white shots, America's jazz scene of the 1950s to the 1970s. A photographer since his childhood days in 1930s Texas, Williams became one of the first African-American photographers to enter Chicago's prestigious Institute of Design. The school, now a part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is sometimes referred to as the American Bauhaus, since much of its faculty consisted of refugees from the Nazis who had taught at the original German Bauhaus. Having experienced discrimination themselves in Berlin, the school's teachers, Williams says, "weren't going to have none of that" in Chicago. Playboy wasn't, either; the magazine hired Williams in 1958, and on that beat he captured all the greats. The most interesting aspect of Williams's photos is that he employed an unlikely formula to make his celebrity pinups: Instead of taking a careful, posed shot, as is the standard in the field, he used the candid-camera technique, catching his subjects in unguarded moments, a method favored by street photographers. In Williams's hands, the results show off the best of both worlds.

Best show to highlight a Playboy photographer

Ted Williams, Tone Poems

Now, calm down. The Playboy photographer in question, Ted Williams, made a career not from those famous cheesecake centerfolds, but by recording, in classic black-and-white shots, America's jazz scene of the 1950s to the 1970s. A photographer since his childhood days in 1930s Texas, Williams became one of the first African-American photographers to enter Chicago's prestigious Institute of Design. The school, now a part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is sometimes referred to as the American Bauhaus, since much of its faculty consisted of refugees from the Nazis who had taught at the original German Bauhaus. Having experienced discrimination themselves in Berlin, the school's teachers, Williams says, "weren't going to have none of that" in Chicago. Playboy wasn't, either; the magazine hired Williams in 1958, and on that beat he captured all the greats. The most interesting aspect of Williams's photos is that he employed an unlikely formula to make his celebrity pinups: Instead of taking a careful, posed shot, as is the standard in the field, he used the candid-camera technique, catching his subjects in unguarded moments, a method favored by street photographers. In Williams's hands, the results show off the best of both worlds.

Best print show -- solo

Emilio Lobato, Printmaker's Portfolio

The artist Emilio Lobato, mostly famous for his mixed-media abstract paintings, is also an accomplished printmaker. This is not surprising when you learn that his mentor was printmaster Mary Chenoweth, with whom he studied while he was a student at Colorado College. For Printmaker's Portfolio, Lobato assembled a group of abstract prints that surveyed his career, dating back to the early 1990s. The small but strong show was mounted on the mezzanine loft at Havu, where it was a little crowded, but that was a minor complaint.

Best print show -- solo

Emilio Lobato, Printmaker's Portfolio

The artist Emilio Lobato, mostly famous for his mixed-media abstract paintings, is also an accomplished printmaker. This is not surprising when you learn that his mentor was printmaster Mary Chenoweth, with whom he studied while he was a student at Colorado College. For Printmaker's Portfolio, Lobato assembled a group of abstract prints that surveyed his career, dating back to the early 1990s. The small but strong show was mounted on the mezzanine loft at Havu, where it was a little crowded, but that was a minor complaint.

Best print show -- group

works on paper: a riverhouse retrospective

Riverhouse is a Steamboat Springs-based print studio founded in 1988 by William and Jan van Straaten as a place where artists could come, spend a few weeks in the mountains and make some works on paper facilitated by master printer Susan Hover. In its twelve-year history, Riverhouse has attracted some big names like Sol Lewitt, Komar & Melamid and Lynda Benglis. Their work, and the work of many others, was part of last fall's works on paper: a riverhouse retrospective, presented by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and mounted in the lobby and on the lower level of the Republic Plaza skyscraper. An added bonus of any show at Republic Plaza is that the lobby space, with all that marble and granite, is one of the best-looking rooms in the state.

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