About the Painting
"Saturday Matinee"
Printing Inc in Wichita (where I spend my days as system administrator) has a very popular quarterly calendar series that includes some very fine work of local and not-so local artists. Many of the calendars become collector's items and this is one of my favorites. The first quarter of 1999 featured this very cool painting by Hugh Greer of the historic Orpheum Theatre, Wichita, entitled "Saturday Matinee," as it looked in 1954, with kids jumping off a bus (in the snow) on their way to see "White Christmas."
The painting was originally used by the Sedgwick County Heart Association for their Christmas card in 1998. They have chosen Hugh's works for their annual Christmas card seven times!
About the Artist
Hugh Greer
A 1967 graduate of Kansas University, with a degree in Industrial Design, Hugh Greer has spent the last 30 years as an architectural delineator. For many years, his "free time" was spent on the lakes and rivers of Kansas in pursuit of trophy bass, with landscape painting taking third place in competition for his time. However, his love for capturing a rare-moment-in-time on canvas has gradually displaced bass fishing. The demand for his paintings is such that he now only works mornings on architectural art and long afternoons creating fine landscapes.
His medium is acrylic. He is able to take advantage of its versatility by using it as thin washes like watercolor, or thick like oil for softening edges, usually combining both styles in the same painting.
His work has received many awards, the latest being a Purchase Award in the Kansas Watercolor Society Seven-State Exhibition.
Hugh has been featured in "Focus Santa Fe" June/July 1994; "Art of the West" Jan./Feb. 1998; and "City Arts/Wichita Sedgwick County Arts and Humanities Council Magazine" July 1998, boasts a front page feature article.
I had the pleasure of purchasing at a benefit auction this past spring (where Brennan Manning was guest speaker), a book published by Hugh of his paintings. "Missouri to New Mexico" is a beautiful full-color book of some of his favorite scenes as he has traveled the back roads. Each painting has its own special verse by Texas writer Cathy Bolon Stephenson.
Hugh is represented in Kansas by The Wichita Gallery of Fine Art, Wichita, and The Courtyard Gallery, Lindsborg, KS; Wadle Galleries Ltd., Santa Fe, New Mexico; and American Legacy Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri.