Oregon Art

Art appreciation blog for works by Oregon artists, present and past, as well as art depicting Oregon. Cover image: Untitled (On the Snake River), Charles Erskine Scott Wood, 1906 Profile image: 7up Sign, Portland, Oregon; © Craig Hickman; 2003

[oregon-art]

Will Vinton, A.C. Arborman, circa 1986, hardened clay, collection of the Oregon Historical Society

Will Vinton Studios was founded in Portland in 1976 by Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning animator from McMinnville, OR and inventor of Claymation, a stop-motion animation technique. His best-known creations, the California Raisins, were an ad campaign that launched in 1986 and featured animated clay raisins dancing to "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." Following the acquisition of Will Vinton Studios by Nike co-founder Phil Knight in 2002, the company switched from short films to feature-length films and was succeeded by Laika in 2005.

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Will Vinton on the Oregon Encyclopedia

[oregon-art]

Bruce Sorensen, "Portland Draft Benefit Counselling," Sand, Notary Sojac, Springer's July 8th, 1968, lithograph handbill, 4.5"x 5.75"

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[oregon-art]

Brenna Kimbro, Sky Dancer, bronze, 35″H X 36″L X 10″W

"Life’s ups and downs fill my heart with intention to be all I can be. An empowering goal in the purpose of my existence, is to create art that impacts others in their own way. Sculpture is a rare occasion that grants this liberty. Bronze sculpture exists from generations past to generations to come...Communicating through everlasting art is wondrous."

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[oregon-art]

Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Untitled (On the Snake River), 1906, oil on canvas, 25"x30"

C.E.S. Wood may have been the most influential cultural figure in Portland in the forty years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. He helped found the Portland Art Museum and was instrumental in making the Multnomah County Library a free and public institution. He secured the services of his friend Olin Warner, a nationally known sculptor, to design the Skidmore Fountain, and his words "Good citizens are the riches of a city" are inscribed at its base. The Portland Rose Festival was his idea. He numbered among his friends Mark Twain, Emma Goldman, John Reed, Clarence Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, Ansel Adams, John Steinbeck, Charlie Chaplin, James J. Hill, and Langston Hughes. Soldier, lawyer, poet, painter, raconteur, bon vivant, politician, free spirit, and Renaissance man, Wood might also be the most interesting man in Oregon history.

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C.E.S. Wood on the Oregon Encyclopedia

[oregon-art]

Robert Bruce Horsfall, Untitled (Black-Headed Grosbeaks and Lazuli Buntings), 1921, watercolor, collection of the Oregon Historical Society

About 1920, Willard Ayers Eliot contracted with a well-known natural history artist, R. Bruce Horsfall, for 56 illustrations for Eliot’s book Birds of the Pacific Coast, published in 1923. This book saw at least five editions. Eliot was deeply involved with Oregon Audubon Society (later changed to Portland Audubon, then the Bird Alliance of Oregon as of 2024).

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R. Bruce Horsfall on Oregon Artswatch

[oregon-art]

Craig Hickman, 7up Sign, Portland, Oregon, 2003, pigment-based inkjet print, collection of the Portland Art Museum

Craig Hickman is a co-founder of Blue Sky and currently serves as professor in the Digital Arts Program at the University of Oregon. He is also the creator of Kid Pix, a computer drawing program for children. Hickman earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Portland State University and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Washington, Seattle.

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Craig Hickman at Blue Sky Gallery

[oregon-art]

Aimee O'Will, Pigeon #12, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 10"x10"

Pigeons are universal, nearly everybody is familiar with them. As a family, there are more than 250 species worldwide—demonstrating great diversity and adaptability. Across human culture they symbolize community, love and hope. Throughout history pigeons have been our heroes and our food. In these times of extreme social division, Aimee presents 100 pigeon paintings as a vision of unity.

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Aimee O'Will on Instagram

[oregon-art]

James Allen, Bugs in the Machine, 2023, collage, 32"x42" framed

James Allen was born in 1977 in Illinois. He earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 2000. Currently he lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Allen's artwork is included in Art Made From Books: Altered, Sculpted, Carved, Transformed published by Chronicle books. His work was exhibited at the Bellevue Arts Museum in The Book Borrowers: Contemporary Artists Transforming the Book in 2009. His Book Excavations can be found in Public collections at UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, Ringling College of Art and Design, University of Puget Sound, University of Colorado Boulder, Baylor University, and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He's also exhibited across the country in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, Portland, Miami, and San Francisco.

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[oregon-art]

Anne Boutwell, Columbia Gorge Study VI, 1973, watercolor and crayon on art paper, collection of the Oregon Historical Society

"Today we are experiencing the environment of the Columbia Gorge from the automobile. We see the windshield wipers, the car hood, the highway lines, dividing walls or rails, the telephone poles and highway signs. This series of six sketches plus one oil painting explains this as a reality of our times."

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Anne Boutwell Obituary

[oregon-art]

Karen Illman Miller, Beneath Pacific Tides/Tidepool Treasures, 2019, Silk Broadcloth, silk dupioni, cotton and wool batting, perle cotton, 28"x40"x1" (photo by Kayley Hoddick)

"My first love as a child and later as a professional marine biologist was always tide pools, still is. I could probably name every organism depicted here. The stones are typical of Puget Sound beaches, carried by glaciers from far away places. The stencils I used for this katazome quilt were among the first I cut when I began this art 24 years ago."

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[oregon-art]

Lillian Pitt, Wily Coyote, raku and beads, 10.5"x7"x2"

Lillian Pitt is a Pacific Northwest Native American artist whose ancestors lived in and near the Columbia River Gorge. The focus of her work is on creating contemporary fine art pieces that delight today’s art lovers, and at the same time, honor the history and legends of her people.

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Shop Lillian Pitt's art

[oregon-art]

Louis Bunce, Portland International Airport Mural, 1958, Oil on canvas, 70 x 228 inches, Collection of the Port of Portland

Bunce’s large and colorful abstract expressionist mural for the Port of Portland was inspired by nature and triggered controversy and great resistance across the state of Oregon at the time it was originally presented. The striking original mural is permanently on view for the public located above Blue Star Doughnuts in the pre-security Oregon Market of Portland International Airport.

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Louis Bunce on Oregon Encyclopedia