A painter, lithographer, and writer of the American West, Russell Chatham has had several hundred exhibitions of his paintings and prints and is "considered one of the world's foremost lithographers" (27). He has written numerous essays and short stories on hunting, fishing and conservation as well as on food and wine and has had his work published in Sports Illustrated, Esquire, The Atlantic and Outdoor Life.

Based in Livingston, Montana, he settled there in 1972, and operates a literary press, a gallery, and a company that produces catalogs, prints and posters. He also spends much time fly fishing.

Chatham's paintings focus on the landscape of his surroundings and include Missouri River headwater scenes and Yellowstone National Park. He is fascinated by changing seasons and changing light and the silent, spiritual aspects of landscape. Of his work, he says: "Creating art is an attempt to search for something beyond ourselves". (29).

In 1990, he began a commission of twelve large-size paintings that are odes to the Montana seasons for the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. The main image is titled The Seasons: The Headwaters of the Missouri River in April and is fourteen by ten feet and based on extensive trips to study the river from various vantage points.

Chatham was raised in Carmel Valley, California, and there developed a love for the landscape. An inspiration for his painting was his grandfather, Gottardo Piazzoni, one of the foremost California painters in the early 20th century. Chatham inherited and uses his painting tools, easel and sketch box.

As an artist, Chatham is mostly self-taught with a stated intent of remaining distanced from the contemporary art world. He is not prolific and sometimes finishes only six or seven large paintings a year.

Source:
Donald J. Hagerty, Leading the West

Russell Chatham (October 27, 1939 – November 10, 2019) was a contemporary American landscape artist and author who spent most of his career living in Livingston, Montana. The artist was the grandson of landscape painter Gottardo Piazzoni, though he was essentially a self-taught artist. His work has been exhibited in over 400 one man shows and in museums and galleries over the last five decades.

Art scribe Robert Hughes was among Chatham's collectors along with Paul Allen and actor Jack Nicholson. Chatham's work eschewed the narrative tendency of much western art and presented landscapes that stand in intimate relationship towards the human figure even in the absence of it. In the early 1980s Chatham began making lithographs and stood as one of the world's foremost practitioners of that craft.
In addition to Lithography, Chatham also produced original oil paintings. His oil paintings currently sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and there was a multi-year waiting list for commissions, but according to his dealers, he preferred printing lithographs as the more challenging art form. (Longtime Livingston residents can recall a time when early in his career Chatham traded his canvases for essential services in a barter arrangement.) Despite being a print, Chatham's lithographs have little to do with modern process lithography, which always starts from a photograph and typically only uses 4 colors.

His art lithographs may have 30 or 40 different layers of color, all of which have to be hand drawn on to the printing plate, and the colors selected for the final effect. To see some of the early proofs of one of his prints is to see a study in vivid and unusual colors from which it is almost impossible to conceive of the final subtle shadings and quiet colors.
In addition to his work as a painter, Chatham also authored several books. a series of short stories "Dark Waters" in which he detailed the exploits of his hunting friends, like the author Jim Harrison. The stories were Rabelaisian, vulgar, and exquisitely written (one suspects with a little help from his literary friends). William Hjortsberg disputed this during a presentation in Livingston on 9/12/2008. "He is quite a good writer in his own right," Hjortsberg said. They center on hunting, fly fishing, food, wine and life changes. One story centers around preparing roast duck on an annual outing devoted solely to excess. In addition to Dark Waters, Chatham authored several books about fly fishing.

Many of Chatham's painted works have adorned the covers of Harrison's works.

In 2011, Chatham moved from Livingston back to California. He had a studio in Marshall, California.

Source: Wikipedia (September 2021)

Russell Chatham

Chatham was born on October 10, 1939 in San Francisco, CA and currently lives in Livingston, MT.

'Dusk on the Blackfoot' is one of a suite of lithographs entitled "The Clark Fork River Basin Portfolio". The other images are 'Afternoon on Rock Creek', 'Fall in the Bitterroot Valley', and 'Summer on the Clark Fork'. Chatham produced these prints for the Clark Fork Coalition Fundraiser. The Clark Fork Coalition is a non-profit organization based in Missoula, Montana, working to protect and restore the Clark Fork River watershed.

Geoff Sutton of Sutton West Gallery in Missoula is the board chair for the CFC. To raise money for the organization, Sutton and Chatham co-published the suite of prints and donated 50 of the 375 produced to the Coalition.

PUBLICATIONS
The Artists Bluebook: 29,000 North American Artists, 2003
Davenport's Art Reference, 2001
The Artists Bluebook: 24,000 North American Artists, 2001
Leading the West: 100 Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, 1997
Red Book Price Guide 1997: Western American Art, 1997
Master Index 1971-1993: Artists in Southwest Art, 1993
The Red Book: Western American Price Index, 1993
Russell Chatham: 100 Paintings, 1990
Spirit of Place: Contemporary Landscape Painting, 1989