Hal Rice

The Colorado Gallery of Fine Art takes great pride in announcing that its inaugural artist is the highly acclaimed Hal Rice. Rice’s works hang in fine homes throughout the nation. His paintings were and are shown in top galleries in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. After more than 50 years of dedication to his craft, his current works are among his best.

Rice is always creating. A friend tells of how on a recent road trip, Rice would sometimes describe in great detail a painting he had in mind. When he sets out to paint, he paints furiously, deliberately with stunning brush control. His extraordinary sense of color and texture is perhaps the result of his former career as one Colorado’s leading interior designers. While employed at Howard Lorton Galleries in Denver his client list included Hollywood stars and starlets who used his skill to decorate their Colorado mountain homes.

Working from a simple paper plate – never a palate – he mixes colors instinctively creating an array of beautifully matched complimentary hues and shades specific to each creation. When working on a canvas, he may use as many as 20 or 30 brushes – some old friends worn to little more than nubs – each, he says, yields precisely the correct line or texture.

The inspiration for images in Rice’s paintings is sometime drawn from photographs. For example, a chance encounter with Wyoming cowboys on horseback driving a herd of cattle to summer pasture led to Rice to an impromptu two-day photographic excursion through the rugged countryside. That experience and the photos he snapped served as a muse for several projects that followed. However, as with all of his work -- even plein-air -- do not expect the image he creates to replicate geography. Rather they are a source of inspiration never duplication. “If one wants a painting that replicates, buy a photograph,” he once said.