About the Artist

(Born 1941) "Theodore Waddell is a cattle rancher and painter who lives on the Musselshell River northwest of Billings, Montana. Waddell most often paints freely-rendered range animals roaming the vast plains of Eastern Montana.

In his work, Waddell draws a deliberate parallel between his subject and the elements of abstract* art: cattle and horses are motifs formally arranged on the flattened and enveloping painted "ground" characteristic of modernism. Noted earlier for heavily textured surfaces, Waddell's recent paintings are more atmospheric*, with translucent wax medium layers suggesting the drift of grazing animals, transitions of days, and the procession of the seasons.

Waddell was born in Laurel, Montana, and studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School; Eastern Montana College; and Wayne State University, Detroit (MFA, 1968). He taught at the University of Montana from 1968 to 1976 and has since been a full-time artist and rancher.

He has had more than 90 one-man exhibitions, including a major survey at the Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis. Waddell’s work has been singled out in reviews in the Washington Post and The New York Times, and was the subject of a Newsweek article. He now divides his time between homes in Manhattan, Montana, and Hailey, Idaho, where his wife, Lynn Campion, a writer and photographer, teaches at the Sun Valley Art Center." lifted from AskArt.com