Born in 1941 in Billings, Montana, painter, sculptor, and rancher Theodore Waddell stands as one of the West’s most celebrated contemporary artists. His paintings and prints of “landscapes with animals” couple abstract expressionist technique with creatures—Black Angus cattle, horses, and bison—that populate the high plains and mountain valleys of today’s ranching West. “Theodore Waddell’s vast (and intimate) canvases represent the pinnacle of contemporary western painting and the telling of his life and work lends rich texture and depth to the evolving narrative of the development of modern and contemporary western art,” said author Rick Newby.Ultimately, Theodore Waddell’s works are important, not simply because they bring together disparate traditions but because they stand as emotionally and sensuously resonant works of art that speak of landscapes and animals, life and death, austerity and abundance. They possess, in the words of Seattle Times critic Robin Updike, an “immense, poetic dignity.”