I love framing the Western Art genre, and it’s become a specialty of ours. Why the genre we call “Western Art” doesn’t include California and its great painting tradition is a mystery to me, but I won’t fight it. So there it is in the Portfolio—a recently created section for “Western Art.”
And now our portfolio includes this piece—a 10″ x 12″ oil on linen on board by Arizona painter Matt Smith, and titled “Vermilion Cliffs, AZ.” The fumed and oiled quarter sawn white oak No. 1000 mortise and tenon frame is 2-1/4″ wide. The frame itself is plain—other than the beautiful figure of the wood and the raised square plugs. The main visual interest in the framing is provided by the 1/4″ wide gilt liner (the leaf is 18 kt pale), which is carved with a geometric pattern inspired by the chiseled character of the cliffs. These sorts of features of the Western landscape have always informed the architecture of the people who inhabit those lands and pay them due regard in structures that strive to harmonize with the earth. In framing paintings of the land, nothing is more natural for the architecture of a picture frame than tapping into that vernacular.
Here’s a corner sample of a similar design exploring the western vernacular. The outer frame in this case is a mitered No. 1—3″ with proud splines pinned with dowels. The inner liner is carved in a similar but different pattern—I call it a lightning pattern—to the example above.
—Tim Holton
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