George Carlson

Born in Illinois on July 3, 1940, George Carlson studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Recognized as one of America’s greatest sculptors, Carlson is also a master at using pastels and oils. His art has been shown internationally at the Hakone Open-Air Museum, Tokyo, Japan; the Kyoto World Exposition of Historical Cities, Japan; and the Peking Exhibit, Beijing, China. His works are in numerous prominent collections. His work has been exhibited at the Governor’s Invitational, Denver, Colorado; the Denver Museum of Natural History; the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Arts; the National Academy of Design; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Smithsonian Institution; and the Autry Museum. In 1999, Carlson received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from the University of Idaho.

Carlson won both the Masters Best of Show Award and the Thomas Moran Memorial Award for Painting In 2021 for Light Lingering in Silence, in 2022 for Long Shadows, and in 2023 for Mayday. His other Masters awards include the 2019 and 2018 Thomas Moran Memorial Award for Painting; the 2019 Gene Autry Memorial Award; the 2018 Artists’ Choice Award; the 2017 and 2016 Gene Autry Memorial Award; the Masters of the American West Purchase Award and the Ross and Billie McKnight Artists’ Choice Award, in Honor of John J. Geraghty, in 2015; the 2012 and 2009 Booth Western Art Museum Artists’ Choice Award; the Masters of the American West Purchase Award and the Booth Western Art Museum Artists’ Choice Award in 2010; and in 2005 he won the Masters of the American West Purchase Award and was honored with the John J. Geraghty Award in recognition of his advancement of contemporary Western art.

At the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Prix de West, Carlson won the Frederic Remington Painting Award in 2018; the Robert Lougheed Memorial Award in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010; and is the only two-time winner of the Prix de West Purchase Award, in 2011 and 1975. In 2016 he won the Red Smith Artists’ Choice Award at the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Western Visions Miniatures and More Show & Sale. In 2017 he was one of eight artists showcased in Woolaroc Museum’s The Best of the Best Retrospective Exhibit and Sale.

His work has been featured in Art of the West, Art-Talk, PleinAir, Southwest Art, Sculpture Review, and Wildlife Art magazines, and in the recently published Rizzoli book, George Carlson: The American West.

George Carlson is represented by Claggett/Rey Gallery, Edwards, Colorado; and Wood River Fine Arts, Ketchum, Idaho.