The story of the American West has captured the attention of audiences domestically and internationally for generations. Through film, literature, comic books, music, and art, the gravitas of “the West” continues to hold our attention. As audiences evolve and grow, so has a demand for a fresh perspective and presentation of popular Western tropes or stories. One such evolution of that demand is seen in the emergence of the New West art movement. The New West is a defining branch of Contemporary Western Art, characterized by its use of the modern art styles and visual languages that emerged between the late 19th and late 20th centuries to relay Western storytelling.
Rather than relying solely on classical Western realism and being tied to tradition, New West artists reinterpret and even critique Western subjects using the tools in the modern art toolbox. Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Minimalism, Pop Art and beyond are all fair game. Many artists blur the lines, borrow from more than one style in a single piece and run roughshod over the genre in search of new ways of expressing their perspective of what it is to be western. The result is an aesthetic that honors the mythology of the American West while speaking through a distinctly modern lens.
The Roots: Modernism Arrives in the West
Although the New West art movement started to coalesce in the mid-1960s, its foundations were laid decades earlier by modernists who adopted the West as their subject. Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) painted a series of pieces inspired by her experience teaching in Texas from 1915-1918, a precursor of her famous works inspired by and created New Mexico. The work stripped the landscape to its essential forms, using abstraction, color theory, and modern design to portray her western viewpoint in exciting new ways.
Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) began to adopt modernism into his works in the early 1920’s and created a compelling body of work that was authentic, exciting and portrayed the American West in a way never seen before. These early visionaries helped lay the groundwork for a whole new visual poetry of the region. Their work signaled that Western art could be both iconic and avant-garde, a crucial conceptual shift that paved the way for everything that followed.
Institutional Catalyst: The Founding of IAIA and Native Modernism
A major spark came in 1962 with the founding of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. Created under the leadership of visionaries like Lloyd Kiva New, IAIA empowered Indigenous artists to break from ethnographic expectations and embrace the modern art movement on their own terms. Early teachers and graduates of IAIA, such as Fritz Scholder and T.C. Cannon, pioneered what is now known as Native Modernism, a bold fusion of modern art styles to tell an authentic Indigenous cultural narrative in a very new way. Their aesthetic rebellion is a cornerstone of the New West, proving that Western identity and storytelling could be reframed through unapologetically contemporary modes.
Artists such as Kevin Redstar, Tony Abeyta and Preston Singletary are among many very talented native artists continuing to contribute to the conversation in a very fresh, meaningful way.
Pop Art Rides West: The Birth of Western Pop
In the early 1970s, Billy Schenck exploded onto the scene with his synthesized cinematic cowboy imagery with the flat color, hard edges, and ironic stance of Pop Art, earning him recognition as the founder and/or father of Western Pop Art. His fusion of all things Western with a Pop visual vocabulary established a key subgenre within the New West, one that continues today through artists such as Ben Steele, Bradford Overton, Miles Glynn, Michael Blessing, and Duke Beardsley, each pushing the dialogue between Americana and contemporary pop culture.
Billy Schenck
Shane
40 x 50 inches
Oil on Canvas
Expanding the Territory: Wildlife, Landscape, and Neo-Americana
As the New West matured, additional subgenres emerged. Each is rooted in a modernist approach to traditional Western subject matter:
Modern Wild/life:
Building on early wildlife visionaries like Bob Kuhn and later innovators such as Tom Palmore, John Nieto and Mary Roberson - this subgenre merges realism with abstraction, graphic reduction, expressive color, and conceptual narrative. Today’s leading voices include Stephanie Revennaugh, Kenneth Peloke, David Frederick Riley, Patricia A. Griffin, and Katherine Turner.
Abstract Landscape
Inspired by the reductive aesthetics of O’Keeffe and Dixon, artists like Ed Mell pushed the envelope further with geometric abstraction, dramatic color, and uniquely rendered perspective. While artists like Theodore Waddell took a note out of abstract expressionists, helping to formalize a new vocabulary for how to communicate a sense of place. This lineage continues today with contemporary painters such as Jivan Lee, Jared Sanders, Douglas Fryer, Robert Moore, and David Grossmann who translate land into gesture, atmosphere, and emotional resonance.
Neo-Americana
This subgenre filters American nostalgia, cowboy culture, and everyday Western iconography through postmodern irony, surrealism, or contemporary cultural critique. The styles of storytelling are as broad and complex as the subjects that inspire them. Early pioneers like Howard Post and Donna Howell-Sickles paved the way for a reinterpretation of such icons in rodeo and cowboy stories, pushing their history into new realms. Artists like Thomas Blackshear, Rocky Hawkins, Dennis Ziemienski, and Geoffrey Gersten are some of the leaders today who merge narrative, design, and symbolic Americana into a modern visual language that feels both familiar and newly reimagined.
A Movement Still in Motion
Together, these compelling narratives, told by the very best fine art storytellers, form a rich, exciting new frontier we call the New West, a movement that spans close to six decades and continues to evolve. What unites its many voices is a shared commitment to honoring the Western experience, both past and present, while using the tools and vocabularies of modern art. Altamira Fine Art is excited to be a leader of the New West by representing the artists at the leading edge of the movement while identifying, developing and encouraging emerging artists with a fresh perspective.