Shaping the Art World

The Western art market is rich in its variety including traditional cowboys, landscapes, wildlife and Native American art, to name a few. In recent years, there has been a stronger push for more viewpoints to enter the fold to help show the real stories of the Southwest. Among the many industry leaders who are moving the market in new directions are the women at the helm of galleries, auction houses and museums. Their fresh approaches and challenging perspectives allow for broader conversations in a thriving market, with access to more representation across the board.

In this feature, you will meet four women who are shaping important auction houses, museum departments and galleries: Alissa Ford of Heritage Auctions; Shanan Campbell of Sorrel Sky Gallery; JR (Jennifer R.) Henneman of the Petrite Institute of Western American Art at Denver Art Museum; and Katherine Halligan of Bonhams. Their journeys to the Western art market are all different, but the unifying passion for this genre of art has propelled them to be game changers.

Alissa FordVice President, American & Western ArtHeritage Auctionsha.com

A love of art is something Alissa Ford has carried with her throughout her entire life. At 4 years old she began winning art contests, and there was never a doubt in her mind that art would be her career. Today she is a key player in the auction world as the vice president of American and Western art at Heritage Auctions, where she has worked since 2011. Early in her academics, she focused on Italian Renaissance art but began to study American art during her time in the Sotheby’s art program. It was a class with William Gerdts that gave her future direction clarity.

“Growing up in California, I never thought about [California art] as being a significant collectible source,” says Ford. “But when I moved to New York City and took Gerdts’ class on California Impressionism, it zapped me. It was like getting medicine and it touched into my home roots. It made me realize that I wanted to go back to California and work in California art.”

While she admits she also was feeling homesick, it was the transition back to California and immersing herself in the field that jolted her career. One day, while working for a different auction house, a painting by Frank Tenney Johnson crossed her desk and her fate was sealed. “It has to be one of the best paintings I’ve ever seen,” Ford recalls. “It was one of his classic moonlit scenes, with a cowboy on his white horse, and just the way it was painted was so sophisticated. It was California Impressionist, but with the addition of this cowboy and horse. I had to know who the painter was; I was enthralled. It opened the door to Western art for me.”

As Ford explains, there’s often a preconceived notion that Western art might not be as highly regarded as American paintings, but there are many artists with quality work. The Johnson led her to the Taos Society of Artists, who came from the East Coast to the New Mexican city and are often recognized for their early modernist style. Georgia O’Keeffe was one woman artist who moved to the Taos area, and was known in her time, but while she painted Western scenes her work more often falls into the broader American art category. Other women artists were recognized in their time, but their markets have only just begun to rise.

“Euphemia Charlton Fortune is one of my favorite early California artists,” Ford shares. “She broke the boundaries of what it meant to be a woman painter in the 1920s and ’30s. She didn’t paint the ladies with parasols; she was out working on the fishing boats or docks or apple orchards.”

Adding to that, Ford says, “There are a lot of really amazing women Western artists, historical and contemporary, who are gaining more recognition. Their market values should align with some of the men, but it is more difficult because the men have a longer history in the auction records. They’ve been able to build their markets. There will be more of a shift, and we’ll continue to see how women have played a role in American art and Western art.”

She is quick to note that collectors in the Western art market are particularly savvy and open to expanding their collections, whether into new categories or as champions of up and comers. “People who collect Western are very dedicated to the subject. They are also extremely open-minded,” says Ford. “It’s very rare their collections are just 19th century; it’s not just Taos Society. They might have more of one topic, but they want to really embrace the history of the West. They have everything from a Remington up to a Fritz Scholder or a Howard Terpning.”

Shanan CampbellOwnerSorrel Sky Gallerysorrelsky.com

For over two decades Shanan Campbell has carved a strong and steady career in the Southwestern art world with her Sorrel Sky Gallery, specializing in paintings, sculpture and jewelry. To say this was a dream realized for the entrepreneur wouldn’t be a stretch, for when she told her parents at just 12 years old that she wanted to be a gallerist, her father, jeweler Ben Nighthorse, gave her all the encouragement she needed.

“We had gone to a gallery opening, and I remember meeting the gallery manger and thinking she was just a rock star,” Campbell shares. “She had the gallery in tiptop shape, artists adored her and she had this really cool fluency with clients. It was like meeting a movie star in my mind. When we were driving home, I announced to my parents that I wanted to manage an art gallery. Dad stopped the car and turned and looked at me, and said, ‘You could do that; you could own a gallery.’”

That night at home, Campbell and her father sat down together and mapped out the process. During high school she began working in a local gallery, then in college she started to sell art. Following that, she worked for the Smithsonian in their division of product development and licensing, and then spent a year running her father’s jewelry studio. She started at the Franklin Mint soon after and had eight Western states as her territory where she would go to art shows and meet artists. After getting married and wanting to slow down from life on the road, Campbell returned to Durango, Colorado, and managed the gallery she worked at in high school for eight years.

Her background in all areas of the industry prepared Campbell for anything ahead when she opened the doors to her first Sorrel Sky location in Durango nearly 22 years ago. She’s since expanded to a second showroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year. The journey hasn’t been without challenges—like devastating Colorado wildfires that greatly impacted the region early in her years owning the gallery—but Campbell knows how to pivot (even starting an art consulting business to place works in corporate collections) and how to thrive in all circumstances.

“I think having that desire and knowing what is necessary to make it in the art business is important. It’s not easy,” says Campbell, who adds that many who open galleries only become modestly successful. In addition, because the roots of the Western art world are deeply masculine, Campbell admits the environment was a challenging one for a woman to navigate.

Keeping up with changing technology over the years has been instrumental in staying ahead of the curve. Early on, Campbell was one of the few galleries with a website to showcase—but could not yet virtually sell—the art. She also doesn’t shy away from thoughtfully planning partnerships with artists who now typically use social media and websites to showcase their art.

“Artists weren’t easy to get ahold of before, and you really controlled the work and the narrative for collectors,” Campbell explains. “Now you can search and contact them directly, so it’s about having high integrity and working with like-minded people.

As an established gallery owner, with recognizable spaces in two states, Campbell looks to the future: “I wanted to see what the first few years of a second location would be, and now that I have all of that down, the goal is a third location when an opportunity presents itself.”

JR HennemanDirector & Curator, Petrie Institute of Western American ArtDenver Art Museumdenverartmuseum.org

The Western art market seems to have always been beckoning JR Henneman. Having grown up on a farm and ranch in north central Montana, that way of life and culture was always in her purview. Yet, she says, “I didn’t fully appreciate Western American art as a professional field, however, until I moved out of state and gained experience in diverse museums in Europe and the U.S. With a broader experience and wider vision of American art and culture, I could better appreciate the important role of representations of the American West in a global context.”

In July 2016, Henneman started working in Western American art when she landed the position as assistant curator at the Petrite Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum. Prior, she had finished her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 19th-century British and American visual and material culture, and before that worked in museums in the U.S. and abroad. She was promoted to associate curator in 2018 and in January 2022 became the director and curator at the Petrite Institute.

Working in a curatorial position has been a seamless fit for Henneman whose interests in research and writing to help further the field of Western American art are at the forefront of her everyday work. Through storytelling and public speaking, she can connect with visitors to the museum as well as educate diverse audiences. Another joy is being able to spend time with artwork and astutely navigating “the challenge of choosing what to acquire, what to display, whose story to tell and working with diverse communities to tell those stories.”

The digitization of archives and historical materials has been one of the biggest changes since the beginning of her career. It has allowed scholars everywhere to have access to primary resources, and it has impacted research and the ability to share stories from all over. In Denver, she sees the Western art market thriving for both contemporary and historical segments. Particularly citing a “large group of younger collectors trained on the regularly anticipated Coors Western Art Show as well as events and opportunities associated with the Petrie Institute” and the museum’s group, the DAM Westerners, who bring together experienced and younger collectors together to learn from each other and from the museum’s collecting activities.

This fall the Denver Art Museum will host a show on Charles M. Russell’s only exhibition in Denver, at the Brown Palace Hotel in 1921. “The paintings and sculptures that will be included are considered among his best,” Henneman says. “We will also tell the story of his wife and business partner, Nancy, without whom Russell would not have become a world-renowned Western American artist.”

The care and expansion of the Petrie Institute holdings are another area of importance to Henneman, who seeks to show at broader, more realistic, view of the West. “Given the excellence of the collection, built over the past 20 years by Ann Daley, Joan Trocolli, Peter Hassrick and Thomas Brent Smith, I have the great pleasure of continuing to improve our holdings while focusing on overlooked artworks and stories, thereby ensuring that everyone finds something of interest in our galleries,” says Henneman. “This reflects the reality (which those of us who live in the West know) that it has always been a place of diversity, opportunity and inspiration.”

Katherine HalliganHead of Department, Western ArtBonhamsbonhams.com

During her childhood, Katherine Halligan developed an interest in fine art and history from her mother who passionately shared her own love of the arts. Going to museums was a regular pastime, and when Halligan decided on a higher education she headed to Wells College to study art history. Her time there was instrumental in her future career path to auctions.

“Wells really pushed experimental learning through internships,” says Halligan, “and those experiences—from a regional museum working in the education department to time in the Christie’s 19th Century European Paintings department in New York, to working at American art galleries in Manhattan—were all wonderful and confirmed for me that I wanted to work in some capacity with art and in the arts sphere.”

Halligan has spent the last 25 years working in the Los Angeles art scene with a focus on California and Western art. She was an assistant at George Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood (a gallery specializing in California Impressionism) and then moved on to Christie’s LA salesroom working as an administrator for California and Western art sales for the American Paintings department. Today she is the head of the Western Art department at Bonhams where she consigns and sells property for twice-yearly Western art auctions in November and April, prepares catalogs, and works on estate tax and insurance appraisals.

Technology has sped up the pace of the auction world, with quick turnaround for inquiries, and it has created transparency because of easier access to auction and market trends. “For clients,” Halligan says, “that same availability of auction record databases, and even the sophistication of simple Google searches of artists’ names, provides them with so much information, transparency and control over how they would like to proceed with a potential consignment or private sale.”

Working with consignors, particularly single-owner collections or estates, lets Halligan explore fine art in new ways. She says, “I love really delving deep into the full scope of someone’s collection, to follow their collecting journey and get to know them through their art.” While Halligan has noticed that at auctions it’s becoming harder to find the fresh, quality historic property, it has allowed for more contemporary artists to enter the fold.

This, coupled with industry-wide trends, can help inform where the market might be going. Halligan says that Western museums are at the forefront of pushing for greater inclusion of art by women, Indigenous artists and artists of color. Also in those museum settings, she says, “objects that would have been considered ‘craft’ are now being presented alongside paintings and sculpture for a much more complete picture of influences and interactions between artists and cultures, and a fuller accounting of what was being produced in the same time periods. I think it’s a much richer telling of complex and unique history of Western and Indigenous American art.”

This story appeared in the October/November 2023 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety.

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