Lockwood Dennis Painting “Front Range” (2001) (Auction 2026-06-05, Lot 19B)

$289.13

Lockwood “Woody” Dennis (American, 1937-2012). “Front Range” oil on canvas, 2001. Hand-signed at lower right and signed and dated with inventory number on verso. A dynamic interpretation of Colorado’s Front Range, this painting by Lockwood Dennis transforms the mountainous landscape into a rhythmic interplay of color and form. Bold, angular ridges in hues of vermilion, crimson, and coral rise in jagged tiers, their sharply outlined planes animated by Dennis’s painterly yet graphic style. In the foreground, horizontal bands of green and ochre evoke cultivated plains, while the sky above dissolves into delicate purples and pale blues, suggesting the transitional light of dusk. This composition exemplifies Dennis’s modernist aesthetic, with its flattened geometry, expressive brushwork, and deep reverence for the emotional resonance of place and memory. Size: 14″ W x 11″ H (35.6 cm x 27.9 cm)

Lockwood “Woody” Dennis was driven to paint throughout his 45 year career. Painting was the most personal and rewarding artistic endeavor for Dennis. Each canvas reveals new aspects about him as a person – his approaches to life, the environment, and art. During the early years, Dennis was most influenced by the works of Post-Impressionist pioneers of early Modernism such as Cezanne and Matisse. In time, Dennis developed a graphic style informed by the style and imagery he created for his woodblock prints.

Lockwood Dennis was quite eloquent and insightful when asked about his art. The following is an excerpt from the “On Impetus” section of his “Philosophical Musings on Painting”: “The impetus to paint is always an experience – a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, its not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience. Dennis continues, “A painting starts with an exuberance. It’s good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time – a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the cartoon character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or ‘animate’ it in the present.”

Lockwood Dennis’ paintings have been collected by the following museums and organizations: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington; Seattle Art Commission, Seattle, Washington; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Swedish Medical Center Foundation, Seattle, Washington; Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington; Jefferson Museum of Art and History, Port Townsend, Washington; Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington; Clallam County Historical Society, Port Angeles, Washington; Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Winslow, Washington; US Library of Congress, Washington, DC; US State Department, Washington, DC.

Provenance: Lockwood Dennis Art Estate, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Condition: Excellent. Painting is in excellent overall condition. Hand-signed at lower right and signed and dated with inventory number on verso.