Shari Brownfield Fine Art

Shari Brownfield Fine Art Shari Brownfield Fine Art is a private art advisory and appraisal office and project space located in Jackson Hole, WY.

“I am interested in the reality of space itself, not in depicting it.”— Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015)Long before his birth...
05/31/2026

“I am interested in the reality of space itself, not in depicting it.”

— Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015)

Long before his birthday became a point of reflection, Ellsworth Kelly was quietly redefining how we see. Born on May 31, 1923, Kelly emerged as a leading voice in postwar abstraction, creating works that resist narrative in favor of direct, sensory experience. Color, line, and form are not symbols in his practice, rather they are the subject itself.

For Kelly, looking was an active process. Drawing from observations of architecture, landscape, and shadow, he distilled the world into essential shapes—curves, panels, and planes that feel both precise and intuitive. His paintings and sculptures do not describe what we see; they heighten our awareness of seeing. A curve echoes a leaf. A panel holds the weight of a wall. Space becomes something felt, not illustrated.

Across decades, Kelly’s work remained committed to clarity. Hard edges meet expansive color fields, creating compositions that are at once quiet and commanding. Whether monumental or intimate, each piece invites a slowed attention by a viewer for an encounter with form as presence rather than representation.

What connects his work is not just minimalism, but sensitivity: a belief that reduction can open rather than limit, that simplicity can hold complexity. In Kelly’s hands, color becomes structure, and structure becomes experience.

On May 31, his legacy invites us to look more closely at the world around us. To notice those shapes, rhythms, and the subtle relationships that often go unseen day to day.

"Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance" (1951), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
"Blue Green Red" (1963), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
"Totem" (2017), Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
"Austin" (2018), Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity…”— Henri Matisse (1869–1954)In 1905, Henri Matisse did som...
05/27/2026

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity…”

— Henri Matisse (1869–1954)

In 1905, Henri Matisse did something that felt almost reckless: he stopped trying to describe the world as it looked, and began painting it as it felt. When "Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat)" debuted at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, viewers were stunned—color untethered from reality, brushstrokes loose and unapologetic, a portrait that refused to behave. Critics mocked it. Others recognized it as a rupture.

At the center of it all was Amélie, Matisse’s wife, who was not rendered in likeness, but in sensation. Green streaks cut across her face, pinks and blues shift unpredictably, the hat itself becomes a field of color rather than form. It wasn’t just a portrait, it was a declaration. Painting no longer needed to imitate. It could invent.

This moment would come to define Fauvism, a movement grounded in expressive color and emotional immediacy, and mark a turning point in modern art. What began as scandal became foundational to an entirely new way of seeing that continues to reverberate more than a century later.

Now on view at SFMOMA, Matisse’s “Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal” returns us to that moment of disruption, inviting us not just to look at the painting, but to experience the shock of its arrival. To see it as audiences once did: unfamiliar, unresolved, and radically new.

What emerges is not just the story of a single work, but of an artist willing to risk everything on a new visual language.

"Femme au chapeau" (1905), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
"Deux odalisques" (1928), placed in a private collection by Shari Brownfield Fine Art, Jackson, WY
"Jeune femme au bracelet" (1944), placed in a private collection by Shari Brownfield Fine Art, Jackson, WY
"Tête de femme" (1951), placed in a private collection by Shari Brownfield Fine Art, Jackson, WY
"Dance" (1910), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

“I see no reason why art should not be a record of the life around me.”— Winslow Homer (1836–1910)Long before Memorial D...
05/25/2026

“I see no reason why art should not be a record of the life around me.”

— Winslow Homer (1836–1910)

Long before Memorial Day was formalized,Winslow Homer documented the Civil War as it unfolded. His paintings and illustrations move between the front lines and the moments in between, where soldiers wait, reflect, and endure. These are not scenes of spectacle, but of presence where the gravity of experience is carried in stillness as much as in action.

Later, artists like John Singer Sargent approached the aftermath of war with a different intensity. In "Gassed", figures move in a line, blinded and dependent on one another, the scale of the canvas amplifying both vulnerability and resilience. The work does not resolve; it lingers.

In the 20th century, Maya Lin offered another form of remembrance. Her Vietnam "Veterans Memorial" resists traditional monumentality, instead creating a space of reflection where names (thousands of them) become the work itself. Visitors see themselves mirrored alongside those who are gone, collapsing past and present into a shared moment of recognition.

What connects these artists is not just subject, but an intention and commitment to remembrance that is both personal and collective. Their works ask us not only to look, but to reflect, to pause, and to carry forward what is remembered.

On Memorial Day, these legacies remind us that remembrance can take many forms. In art, it becomes a way to honor, to witness, and to hold space for those who are no longer here.

Winslow Homer, "Prisoners from the Front" (1866), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
John Singer Sargent, "Gassed" (1919), Imperial War Museum, London, UK
Maya Lin, "Vietnam Veterans Memorial" (1982), Washington, D.C.

“We work together because the land is not one voice, it is many.”— Claudia Alarcón (b. 1989) & Silät (founded 2023)We’re...
05/22/2026

“We work together because the land is not one voice, it is many.”

— Claudia Alarcón (b. 1989) & Silät (founded 2023)

We’re honored to share the recent acquisition of "Entre la escucha y las semillas: nuestra tierra (Between listening and seeds: our land)" by Claudia Alarcón and Silät, now placed in a private collection.

There’s something especially meaningful about placing a work like this, where authorship itself is collective and deeply rooted in place. Alarcón, working in collaboration with the Wichí women’s collective Silät, approaches textile not simply as material, but as a living practice. This collaboration is shaped by shared knowledge, ancestral techniques, and a sustained relationship to land. Each thread carries time, labor, and memory, woven together through both individual and communal hands.

"Entre la escucha y las semillas: nuestra tierra (Between listening and seeds: our land)" (2025), placed in a private collection by Shari Brownfield Fine Art

“To set the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material...
05/20/2026

“To set the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day.”

— Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)

It’s almost biking season in Jackson Hole!

Few objects have moved so fluidly between utility and imagination as the bicycle. At once practical and poetic, it has long captured artists’ attention as a symbol of motion, autonomy, and the changing rhythms of modern life.

For artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the bicycle was embedded in the energy of urban culture. His posters and prints captured cyclists and spectators alike, reflecting the growing spectacle of cycling in public life. Around the same time, Umberto Boccioni and the Futurists embraced the bicycle as a symbol of speed and progress, its spinning wheels and forward motion aligning with their fascination with dynamism and change. Marcel Duchamp’s "Bicycle Wheel" (1913) marked an innovative turn though by elevating a simple object into one of the first readymades. Removed from its function, the wheel becomes something to contemplate, shifting the bicycle from tool to idea. And most recently, Ai Weiwei created an installation “Forever” using the bike to symbolize personal freedom and collective labor while commenting on rapid social and technological shifts in light of urbanization.

What connects these works is not just subject, but a sensibility that the bicycle is both ordinary and transformative. It carries us through space, but also through history, shaping how we experience the world around us. I hope those who can take a mindful pause start their day on the biking paths, letting the rhythm of wheels carry us forward!

Ai Weiwei, “Forever Bicycles” (2014), The Contemporary Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "The Simpson Chain" (1896), private collections
Umberto Boccioni, "Dynamism of a Cyclist" (1913), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Marcel Duchamp, "Bicycle Wheel" (1913), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

“Cakes are good too. You can eat them.”— Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)Long before World Baking Day was marked on the calend...
05/17/2026

“Cakes are good too. You can eat them.”

— Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)

Long before World Baking Day was marked on the calendar, artists were drawn to the quiet rituals of the kitchen—spaces where care, labor, and creativity unfold side by side. Baking, like art, is an act of transformation. Simple ingredients shaped by time, touch, and intention form into something both familiar and new.

In the 18th century, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin turning toward the everyday loaves of bread, copper pots, and shared meals for inspiration, elevating the ordinary along the way. His visual appeal was an invitation for us to slow down and notice the textures and rhythms of domestic life. His works suggest that meaning is often found not in spectacle, but in repetition and attention.

Centuries later, Wayne Thiebaud reimagined the mass of baked goods as objects of color and form. His paintings of cakes, pies, and pastries are at once playful and precise, transforming dessert displays into studies of light, shadow, and abundance. What might seem indulgent becomes, in his hands, a meditation on pleasure, memory, and display.

Most recently, artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija have expanded the idea of food in art altogether, using cooking and shared meals as a medium akin to installation art. In these works, the act of both making and sharing food becomes the artwork itself through a genuine invitation to gather, connect, and participate.

What connects these artists is not just subject, but a recognition that making, whether in the kitchen or the studio, is a form of care and expression. Baking, like art, carries memory, culture, and community within it. In many ways, it was the first human way of connecting visually and physically.

With that in mind, we hope you make time to sit with loved ones over a treat today!

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, "The Brioche" (1763), Louvre Museum, Paris, France
Wayne Thiebaud, "Cakes" (1963), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Rirkrit Tiravanija, "Untitled (Free)" (1992), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

“I think that painting is like a family… you don’t choose it, but you belong to it.”— Mary Cassatt (1844–1926)Long befor...
05/15/2026

“I think that painting is like a family… you don’t choose it, but you belong to it.”

— Mary Cassatt (1844–1926)

Long before International Day of Families was formally recognized, artists attuned themselves to the subtle relationships that define our daily lives and roots. Across art history, family appears not as a fixed ideal, but as a network of connections shaped through closeness, distance, repetition, and change too.

Édouard Vuillard looked into domestic interiors where figures and surroundings blur together, where family and space were one. Pattern and proximity collapse distinctions between person and place, evoking the closeness (and occasional tension) of shared life. In these works, family becomes atmosphere as much as subject.

For Mary Cassatt, family meant directly focusing on the intimate space between mother and child. Her paintings center gesture and attention—bathing, holding, watching—moments that unfold with a sense of presence rather than sentimentality. These works suggest that family is built not in grand declarations, but in small, repeated acts of care.

In the 20th century, Dorothea Lange expanded this vision outward, documenting families navigating hardship during the Great Depression. Her photographs, including "Migrant Mother", remind us that family is also shaped by resilience and circumstance.

On May 15, International Day of Families invites us to look more closely at the connections that sustain us, both seen and unseen, chosen and inherited.

Mary Cassatt, "Woman with a Sunflower" (1905), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Édouard Vuillard, "Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist" (1893), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Dorothea Lange, "Migrant Mother" (1936), Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

“I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”— Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)Long before his birthday became a moment of celebration, Salva...
05/11/2026

“I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”

— Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)

Long before his birthday became a moment of celebration, Salvador Dalí was reshaping the very boundaries of perception. Born on May 11, 1904, Dalí emerged as a singular force within Surrealism, turning the subconscious into a stage where time melts, forms dissolve, and logic gives way to dream. His work invites us not to escape reality, but to see it differently through distortion, symbolism, and imagination untethered.

For Dalí, painting was a method of excavation. In works like "The Persistence of Memory", time softens and stretches, no longer fixed but fluid and unstable. Across his practice, recurring symbols—ants, eggs, crutches, barren landscapes—form a personal visual language, at once deeply psychological and universally resonant. His technical precision, grounded in classical training, heightens the uncanny, rendering the impossible with startling clarity.

Dalí’s world is one where contradictions coexist: control and chaos, illusion and hyper-reality, humor and unease. Whether monumental or minute, his works ask us to linger in uncertainty, to embrace the strange, and to consider that meaning is not always fixed, but constantly shifting beneath the surface.

On May 11, Dalí’s legacy invites us to look beyond the visible and to trust the imagination, following it wherever it leads.

"The Persistence of Memory" (1931), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
"Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)" (1936), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
"Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening" (1944), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain
"The Elephants" (1948), private collection
"The Sacrament of the Last Supper" (1955), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

“The mother is the first artist.”— Art Historian Griselda Po***ck (b. 1949)Long before Mother’s Day was formalized, arti...
05/10/2026

“The mother is the first artist.”

— Art Historian Griselda Po***ck (b. 1949)

Long before Mother’s Day was formalized, artists were already exploring the figure of the mother as both subject and force, intimately, symbolically, and humanistically.. Across art history, motherhood has been rendered not only as devotion, but as labor, identity, and transformation.

For Mary Cassatt, this meant turning toward the quiet, interior moments of care. Her paintings of mothers and children resist sentimentality, instead offering scenes of attentiveness and reciprocity: gestures of touch, gaze, and presence that unfold with subtle complexity. Similarly, Käthe Kollwitz approached motherhood through the lens of loss and protection, her prints carrying the weight of grief, war, and the fierce instinct to hold on.

In the 20th century, artists like Frida Kahlo reframed motherhood altogether, confronting its absence, its pain, and its expectations. Through deeply personal imagery, she expanded the conversation beyond idealization, making space for contradiction and vulnerability. Contemporary artists continue this work. Figures like LaToya Ruby Frazier document generational relationships with unflinching clarity, while others explore caregiving as both personal experience and social structure.

What connects these artists is not just subject, but the perspective and recognition that motherhood is not a single story, but a shifting, lived reality shaped by time, culture, and circumstance. Their works remind us that to depict a mother is also to consider what it means to nurture, to endure, and to create.

Mary Cassatt, "The Child’s Bath" (1893), Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Käthe Kollwitz, "Woman with Dead Child" (1903), Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne, Germany
Frida Kahlo, "My Birth" (1932), private collection
LaToya Ruby Frazier, "The Notion of Family" (2001–14), various collections

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55 South Glenwood Street
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83001

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Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 2pm
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