Michael Untiedt

Mr. Untiedt strives to "paint like Mark Twain wrote." He is a gifted story-teller who turns his subjects into narratives through his use of color, imagery and brush strokes.

"I'm descended from a long line of tool users, farmers, ranchers, and carpenters," he explains. He worked on his grandfather's eastern Colorado farm all through high school before trading in his wrench for a paint brush. He studied art at the University of Denver, but soon grew disenchanted with the academic approach and decided to buy an old truck to tour the country in, teaching himself to draw and watercolor on the road. But it wasn't until he began using oil paints to capture the Western landscape of his boyhood that he finally found his home as a painter.

The artist often includes buildings in his landscapes in order to explore the way their geomtry interacts with wilder surroundings. He is less interested in being photographically accurate than, as he put it, "searching for what the thing I'm seeeing feels like."

Mr. Untiedt won Best in Show at the 2002 Masters in Montana. He is currently planning a show at Chaparral that will feature paintings from two related towns: Butte, Montana, and sister town in Ireland which was home to many of Butte's original miners.

Hannah Cried, Papa Trout!      oil, 24 x 30      $ 5,800

 The Tie that Binds      oil, 30 x 40       $ 9,950    

A Red Corral      oil, 12 x 16      $ 1,950

Mary's Chickens      oil, 16 x 20     $ 3,100

Aeromotor in Green Lizard Time      oil, 20 x 24      $ 4,800

Famine Fields of Stone      oil, 20 x 16     $ 3,400

View to the West     oil, 16 x 12      $ 2,150

Passing Cloud     oil, 11 x 14     $ 1,400 -- Sold