Blue Horse, Red Desert: The Art of Tom Russell

Known to American audiences primarily through his music, singer-songwriter Tom Russell is every bit as talented on the canvas as he is the page, just as devoted to exploring his chosen art form when there s a brush in his hand as a guitar. And so it's perhaps no surprise that the same sensibilities that enliven and inform his music -- the passion and compassion, his sense of western history and rich feel for his own context -- are also tangibly on display on his canvases. Through the course of presenting more than sixty of Russell's finest paintings, Blue Horse, Red Desert spans some of the most productive years of his artistic career. We see the whimsical humor of such pieces as Free Range Chickens Crossing the Rio Grande; we share in his sense of historical umbrage with Custer's Last Stand and Juarez / Guernica, and we appreciate the sharp, intellectual awareness of his predecessors in homages to Fritz Scholder and Edward S. Curtis. With a brilliant biographical introduction by Russell and complemented by an afterword by masterful author Paul Zarzyski, Blue Horse, Red Desert is destined to be seen as a milestone in the blooming career of a true American master.