Len Chmiel

Len Chmiel is considered by his peers to be a master of design and composition. For the highly respected Chmiel, each painting he creates is an expression of himself. “I used to try to control everything, but now I allow my intuition to speak more. I try to stretch the truth of what the actual image is. I do paintings with recognizable subjects because I’m inspired by what I see; however, that is not my only intention.”

Chmiel’s work is represented in the collections of various museums and major corporations and is included in two books on oil painting. Len Chmiel: An Authentic Nature, which depicts four decades of the artist’s melodic, evocative, and often abstract depictions of the land, was published in 2012.

At the Autry’s 2022 Masters of the American West, Chmiel received the John J. Geraghty Award in recognition of his advancement of contemporary Western art. In 2021 Chmiel won his fifth Artists’ Choice Award at the Autry’s Masters of the American West for his painting Languorous. At the 2019 Prix de West, Chmiel won his second Wilson Hurley Memorial Award. In 2018 he won the Robert Lougheed Memorial Award at Prix de West, his second Best of Show award at the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale, and fourth Artists’ Choice Award at Masters. In 2017 Chmiel was one of eight artists showcased in Woolaroc Museum’s The Best of the Best Retrospective Exhibit and Sale, and he won the Wilson Hurley Memorial Award at Prix de West. In 2016 he was honored with a 45-year retrospective exhibition at the Steamboat Springs Art Museum in Colorado, and he won the Ross and Billie McKnight Artists’ Choice Award, in Honor of John J. Geraghty, at Masters. At the 2011 Masters, he won both the James R. Parks Trustees’ Purchase Award and the Booth Western Art Museum Artists’ Choice Award for his painting Gold Rush, Yuba River. In 2009 he won the Best of Show Award for his cumulative body of work at the Maynard Dixon Country Invitational in Mt. Carmel, Utah. In addition, he has had numerous sellout solo shows.

Chmiel is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the West, and he has been featured in the periodicals American Artist, Business Week, Southwest Art, Western Art & Architecture, and Western Art Digest.

Chmiel and his bird dogs make their home in Hotchkiss, Colorado, where he paints, gardens, tends his vineyard and fruit trees, makes wine, and hunts.

Len Chmiel is represented by Maxwell Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles, California; Simpson Gallagher Gallery, Cody, Wyoming; and Wood River Fine Arts, Ketchum, Idaho.

View the Autry’s interview with Len Chmiel here. Recorded live January/2023.