Coors Western Art Exhibit comes back for 24th year

The Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale is in its 24th year, featuring works by 66 contemporary realists from North America and Europe on display at the National Western Complex Expo Hall, Third Floor, through Jan. 22, open during Stock Show hours. “Community,” a gentle landscape by Dinah K. Worman of Taos, is chosen as the 2017 featured artwork and is printed on the show’s official poster, available for sale. (The original will join others in the National Western collection.) Worman’s oil painting on canvas measures five feet by four feet and shows a snowy field sloping up to an old traditional red barn and farmhouse, with purple mountains in the background. A few black cattle dot the field, giving some perspective to how huge it is. On Jan. 3, there was a gala reception where many of the paintings sold to area collectors. Money raised by this and other National Western Stock Show events provides scholarships for more than 80 college students in medicine, agriculture and veterinary medicine through the National Western Scholarship Trust. In 2016, the Art Show and Sale raised $1.1 million in ticket and art sales.