b.1941
Western Modernist, Abstract Expressionist
The work of Theodore Waddell has generated widespread recognition and appeal. His art draws a deliberate parallel between his subject and abstract art elements. Cattle and horses are motifs arranged formally on the flattened and enveloping painted “ground” characteristic of modernism. While his early works were noted for heavily textured surfaces, Waddell’s recent paintings are more atmospheric, with translucent wax medium layers suggesting the drift of grazing animals, transitions of days, and the movement of seasons.
Waddell grew up west of Billings in Laurel, Montana. He studied art in New York in 1961-62 and was deeply influence by the Abstract Expressionists -- Franz Kline, DeKooning, Pollack, Hans Hoffman and others. Waddell noted, “I didn’t realize how important these influences were. These painters wanted you to know that the canvas had a presence, more than their illusionistic predecessors. The paint had its own identity as well with thick swatches, drips, and blurbs.”
In 1982, Waddell’s work was recognized by a curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and chose several of his pieces for the Second Western State Exhibition. His work was the subject of reviews by the Washington Post and the New York Times following the exhibition. He was also the subject of a Newsweek article. His career was firmly established as a result.
Waddell’s paintings represent diverse approaches, styles, and techniques. There are cattle or horses dotting expansive plains. Some are huddled together in winter blizzards, lost in landscapes of thick paint, under the windswept colors of a rising moon. They are brushed, knifed, dripped, jotted down, and can be grossly real, thickly textured, or feint abstractions.
In addition to painting, Waddell remains a cattle rancher who raises Angus and lives on the Musselshell River just Northwest of Billings.
Selective Exhibitions
2009 – Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, MO
2009 – Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
2009 – Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY
2009 – Colorado Springs fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO
Selective Permanent Collections
Apple Computer, Inc., CA
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas. TX
Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Merck Corporation, West Point, PA
Palm Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
Robert Redford
Ringo Starr
