Theodore Waddell: A Retrospective, 2001.

This exhibition, organized by the Yellowstone Art Museum, presents approximately forty-five paintings, works on paper, and sculptures by Montana rancher and artist, Theodore Waddell. Waddell creates images that are both personal and authentic without succumbing to the nostalgic, popular romance which has overcome so many artists who have chosen to live and work in remote places. His paintings of his cattle and horses are true both to them – their shapes, the poses they strike, the larger clustered forms of the herd – and true to the physical realities of painting – the plane of canvas, the texture of paint, the movement of the artist’s hand. Waddell’s paintings are deceptively accurate, but detail is suppressed by the intensity of his love of rich painted surfaces. Waddell received an MFA from Wayne State University and later served as Associate Professor and Sculpture Area Chairman in the Department of Art at University of Montana.