Kim Wiggins persisted till he developed a unique style as distinctive as the American West.
Cattle drives, cowboys, Indians, and Old Santa Fe. They are familiar subjects in the world of Western art. But you’ve never seen the West as it appears on the imaginary, colorful, and even magical canvas of Kim Wiggins. “One thing’s for sure,” he says. “Nobody’s going to be able to grab their camera and go out and take a photograph of what I’m painting.”
A modernistic blend of the realistic and surreal, Wiggins’ visions are unlike any other. That’s very intentional. But it wasn’t always the case.
Artist Kim Wiggins at work on his monumental painting Chisholm Trail in Roswell, New Mexico, 2024.
Wiggins was in his early 20s when, in 1983, he became the youngest artist inducted into the Society of American Impressionists. Arriving at his first major show with the group, he was thrilled to spot one of his paintings. “I shot across the room to go look at it,” he remembers. “And when I got closer, I realized it wasn’t mine.”
That’s what started him on a journey to find his own style. “If I was ever going to make a mark in the world as an artist,” he says, “I had to come up with my own style that could be recognized all the way across the room.”
Wiggins’ life journey began on a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico, where his great-grandparents had arrived in covered wagons and put down stakes. His father was a photojournalist whose images graced the covers of the top magazines of the day. His mother ran the family ranch. “She taught us how to ride a horse, how to rope, and how to drive a truck,” he says. “She was quite a gal.”
Wiggins’ mother had earlier owned two Arizona cattle ranches, plus a nightclub that hosted such legendary acts as Bob Wills and Hank Snow. And his creative parents had some very famous artist friends. “Growing up, I met Thomas Hart Benton and Georgia O’Keeffe. Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd were very good friends of my parents’.”
Mustang Falls, 2024. Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches.
The daughter of N.C. Wyeth, Henriette was among Wiggins’ mentors, nurturing the young artist who’d been drawing and sculpting since he could hold a pencil. “God just gave me a gift as a child,” Wiggins says. “All the way through high school, that’s where I spent all my free time.”
Sculpture was an early focus — bears, cougars, and other wildlife were a favorite subject. Wiggins was 12 when an art dealer named Jim Clark stopped at the family ranch and, impressed with Wiggins’ creations, asked if he could cast them in bronze. Having gotten permission from Wiggins’ parents, he had them cast. “He split the profit with me,” Wiggins says.
Despite that early success, Wiggins never believed art could be a career and enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after high school. Stationed in Germany, he discovered that his sculpture supplies were prohibitively expensive to ship to Europe, so he spent his evenings painting in oil and his weekends soaking in the grand art museums of Europe. “You could drive to Paris or Amsterdam,” he says. “It was a great time where I learned a tremendous amount.”
Out of the service, he found himself living in Dallas to finish up college, then Ruidoso, New Mexico. Low on funds and struggling to find his way, the young artist was at a crossroads. “Do I get a job at a bank? Or do I do this art thing?” he remembers thinking. “I decided, I’m just gonna paint as much as I can.”
Arizona Night, 2024. Oil on linen, 24 x 30 inches.
Lubbock, Texas, was the closest decent market for his art, situated as it was in the middle of the oil industry — and he knew the place. “It was a shot in the dark, but it seemed like my best option at the time,” Wiggins recalls. “So I loaded up my car with paintings and went knocking door-to-door in the nicest part of town.” Door after mansion door slammed in his face on that hot day. “But around 2 o’clock, an older lady opened her door and said, ‘Young man, you look like you could use a glass of iced tea.’”
Iced tea never tasted so good — and the kind woman bought an 11-by-14 painting for $500, which was enough money to pay the bills. “Driving home, I said, ‘Lord, that was the hardest day of my life. But if I can make a living, I will be glad to do that every month.’”
It was a turning point, and Wiggins made a commitment. “I said, ‘I’m in this for the long haul.’”
In the meantime, Jim Clark had reappeared. He took some of Wiggins’ paintings back to his gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, and sold one the very first day. Things began to pick up from there. Over time, business steadily grew, and the career that once seemed impossible was finally taking off.
But while his impressionistic work was selling, Wiggins still hadn’t found his own style and was determined to head off into uncharted territory. “Most artists would give their right arm to be in your position,” his father warned him. But Wiggins felt strongly that if he was ever going to make his mark, he needed something identifiable — a unique style.
The Thing, 2024. Oil on linen, 24 x 30 inches.
It took some four years of study, experimentation, plus coaching from famed Dallas Nine artist Alexandre Hogue, but the mission was accomplished. More than 30 years later — and a multitude of honors and awards too numerous to mention — no one mistakes Wiggins’ magical works for anyone else’s. Today he is recognized as a “Modern West” innovator. His is a colorfully different and popular take on the West that adds flavor, spice, freshness — and sales — to the top Western art shows in the country.
His highly individual style presents a symbolic and historical American West in a distinctive way that makes Wiggins one of the most recognizable artists in America today.
“The biggest compliment I’ve ever been given is when people say, ‘I don’t know what it is about your work, but it just makes me happy. Your paintings transport me to another world.’”
See Kim Wiggins’ solo show, The Unexpected West, featuring 25 new paintings, November 9 – 17, at The Legacy Gallery Scottsdale (legacygallery.com). Visit the artist at kimwiggins.com.
From our November/December 2024 issue.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of the artist
HEADER IMAGE: Chisholm Trail, 2023 – 2024. Oil on linen, 72 x 96 inches.