Clyde Aspevig (American, born 1951) Shirley Lake

Landscape painter Aspevig was born on the family wheat farm near Rudyard, Montana. When he was eleven years old, his uncle Raud Haagland, an amateur artist, introduced him to oil painting, after Aspevig broke his leg following a fall from a horse.

In 1969 Aspervig moved to Billings, Montana to enroll at Eastern Montana College; however, before finishing his degree he spent a winter in Montana’s Bear Paw Mountains. He did return to complete a degree in art education so that, in his words, “I'd have a profession to fall back on.” After graduating, he moved to Sandy, Oregon and taught at Sandy Union High School, staying for only a short while before moving back to Montana to pursue painting full-time.

Having never received formal art training, Aspevig nonetheless, has achieved success with his natural ability and the study of the works of his favorite artists--John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, and Winslow Homer, among others.

Aspevig’s style has evolved throughout his career and his works suggest, rather than duplicate, the details of the scene, relying on his skill as an artist and the power of the viewer’s imagination in order to elicit a "a deeper response than a literal or detailed interpretation." He is aware of the geological forces that are continuously at work to sculpt the earth, and beautifully captures that essence on canvas.

Aspevig has exhibited at Northwest Rendezvous Group, Helena, Montana, (1980, 1982-85 - Merit Award); National Academy of Western Art, National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, OK (1990, 1992 - Frederic Remington Award & Silver Medal; 1993 - Robert Lougheed Memorial Award; 1994 – Gold Medal; 1997 - Prix de West Award, Prix de West Invitational; 1999 - Robert Lougheed Memorial Award, Prix de West Invitational); National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY (1998 - Red Smith Award, Western Visions Miniature Show); The Montana Land Reliance, Fine Art Exhibition & Sale (2003 - Best of Show); Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, CA (2004 - Artist Choice Award, Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale & Lifetime Achievement Award; 2006 - John J. Geraghty Award; 2006 & 2007 - Trustees’ Purchase Award); Maynard Dixon Country Exhibition and Sale (2010 - Gold Thunderbird Award); California Art Club's Gold Medal Show at USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California (2013 - Edgar Payne Award).

High auction record for this artist: $110,000.