Kenneth Pauling Riley

(American, 1919-2015)

Absaroka Warrior

oil on board

signed Kenneth Riley (lower left)

13 x 12 inches

Property from the Estate of Harry M. Cornell, Jr.

Ken Riley was a good enough drummer that music nearly topped painting as his life’s work. Riley eventually studied with Thomas Hart Benton in Kansas City and Harvey Dunn in New York. After a tour as a combat artist during World War II, he went on to illustrate paperbacks and periodicals, but it was a National Park Service commission and a teaching post at Brigham Young that led him to paint the storied places of the American West. Riley was inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America in 1982, received gold medals four times, and won the Prix de West in 1995. His paintings can be found in the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Booth Western Art Museum. The line connecting the early masters of the West, the Golden Age of American Illustration, and contemporary Western modernism runs straight through Riley’s easel. Absaroka Warrior has all the elements you’d ask of a Riley portrait: the chiseled modeling of the face, the attention to the adornments—the beading and hair wraps—and an abstract background in colors that enhance the figure work.

-James D. Balestrieri

Overall good and stable condition. Framed dimensions: 20 x 19 inches

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Alexandria Dreas

Specialist, Head of Sale, Western and Contemporary Native American Art

[email protected]303.825.1855

Alex has been working in the Fine Art industry for more than 12 years, including time spent at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, and the Denver Art Museum. She has been with Freeman's since 2019 and has headed the Western and Contemporary Native American Fine art Sales since 2021.

Katherine Hlavin

Consultant, Fine Art

[email protected]303.825.1855

Ms. Hlavin joined the firm in June 2017 as Director of Business Development, Western Region, at the Denver location and became a department specialist in 2020. Under her leadership, the Western Art sales in Denver established several sale records. Before joining the firm, she spent seven years working with galleries in Jackson Hole, Scottsdale and Denver. Most recently, she was Gallery Director of Visions West Contemporary in Denver and Jackson Hole. Prior to that, Ms. Hlavin was Director of American & Western Paintings at Altamira Fine Art.

Western & Contemporary Native American Art

Absaroka Warrior

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