Crested Butte Plein Air Invitational Opening Reception

The Shaun Horne Gallery is excited to announce the commencement of the 2023 Crested Butte Plein Air Invitational!

Over the next year and a half, twenty of the best plein air landscape painters in the U.S.–including the likes of Bill Anton, Josh Elliot, Jay Moore, and Ray Roberts, Dave Santillanes, Carolyn Lord, Stephen Quiller, Bruce A. Gomez, Gay Faulkenberry, Heather Burton, Don Sahli, Kathie Odom, Brad Teare, John Lintott, Benjamin Knox, Dawn Cohen, Shaun Horne, and Guest Artist Mark Rittorno–will be periodically arriving in Crested Butte to make original plein air and studio paintings.

Additionally, over 100 Open Class artists will have the opportunity to visit the valley and submit any original plein air painting for jury process and sale. The Invitational will culminate in a three-day exhibition taking place in August of 2023. The multi-year time frame is the first of its kind as far as plein air events go, allowing famous painters the time they need to create magnificent works of art.

We expect that the caliber of this event will earn its place within the modern history of plein air painting and America’s return to observational painting. Over the last three decades, the course of painting in the U.S. has reoriented from a time where abstract painting held sway in the art critical mind, to the current robust market for realistic, referential paintings we enjoy. As such, we are excited to document the invitational, and its place in this new bloom of American referential painting, via a coffee table book after the event.