FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2004

Monticello Fine Arts Gallery Brings
Sculptor Bernie Hart Back to Fort Worth
Adding eight western artists, Gallery seeks to fill a long-empty niche
in the Fort Worth art market, owner says.

If, as Einstein says “the measure of a city’s vitality is not in its
commerce, but in its art”, the vitality of Cowtown, long hailed as “where the west
begins” has been restored by Monticello Fine Arts Gallery’s addition of the
western genre — represented by eight award-winning western artists — to its
already broad collection of traditional and contemporary art and sculpture. Chief
among these is Bernie Hart, whose life-sized barbed-wire sculpture stopped
traffic along Camp Bowie for years before the gallery that represented her
closed, says Glenna Crocker, gallery owner and curator.

“We are thrilled to bring Bernie’s magnificent work back to Fort Worth,”
says Evelyn Fritts, who handles sales and marketing for Monticello Fine Arts
Gallery. Fritts says she tracked Hart down on her ranch in Idaho and an
enthusiastic Hart agreed to load up one of her best new barbed wire sculptures and bring
it back to Fort Worth to be displayed in front of the West Seventh Street
Gallery.

“The western feel of Fort Worth leads visitors and art enthusiasts to expect
collections of good, original western art,” Crocker says. “And we have found
that to be a truly empty niche in our local art market.”

With the addition of eight new western artists including Hart, Crocker says
she believes her gallery will add this genre of original art back into the
local picture, and she says she hopes to include the work of local artists as well
as national favorites. Western artists on display beginning in July at the
Monticello Fine Arts Gallery include:

•Dan Coates, bronze artist and former 35-year rodeo announcer who says he
honors rodeo champions in his art. He also currently raises longhorn cattle on
his the Lightening C Ranch in south Hood County, and his work is displayed in
private collections and corporations throughout the world.

•Lenell Deane, bronze artist, says she seeks to convey the quiet and
forgotten moments of ranch life in her work. A native south Texan from a family of
ranchers, Deane has been recognized by peer review, garnered many national
awards, and has studied with many prominent sculptors of western art.

•John Austin Hanna, painter, creates a variety of dramatic works, rich in
light and color, inspired by the back roads vistas of Texas and Missouri. A
Beaumont, Texas native and Texas Tech graduate, Hanna says he traded in the
skylines of a 20-year career as a New York and Dallas illustrator for the rugged
terrain of the Texas Hill Country where he fulfills his childhood dream of being a
“real artist”.

•Bernie Hart, sculptor, employs oxygen and acetylene welding to mold her
life-sized subjects, including ranch animals, birds, humans and mystical beings,
to capture their textures as well as their unique expressions using aluminum,
solid styled steel, and her trademark barbed wire. An Idaho native and former
art teacher, Hart’s work has been commissioned and shown in prestigious venues
throughout the nation.

•Mark Keathley, painter, says he seeks to capture the action and beauty in
nature he observed during his youth spent in rural East Texas. Keathley’s works
have received wide public and professional acclaim, including receiving the
Popular Award twice at the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame Show and the gold and
silver awards at the Old West Museum Show in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

•Reg Parsons, sculptor and painter, says that when his sculpting and
rendering of wildlife as a taxidermist gave way to working in bronze, he retained the
ability to recognize and portray the essence of his subjects. Parsons hails
from the rural farmlands of southern Alberta, Canada, where he spent his
childhood filling notebooks with his observations and sketches of the wildlife and
western lifestyles reflected in his award winning and internationally acclaimed
work.

•Tom Paulson, painter and sculptor, says he expresses his fascination with
nature’s bounty through painting and sculpture. A Fort Worth native, Paulson
graduated from Texas Wesleyan University and grew up working summers and holidays
on his family’s ranch in Oklahoma. It was there he developed a love for
horses, cattle and cowboy culture that inspired his many works of award-winning
art.

•Mike Tabor, mixed media, says he mixes components of western themes with his’
60-influenced contemporary use of color, light, and simplicity of line to
shape the edges of his western works. A Fort Worth native, Tabor spent his youth
on various ranches on Central Texas. His work has been published and
collected, both by individuals and by corporations, throughout the nation.

“Western art goes in and out of favor, but there has always been,
particularly in this market, a substantial group of collectors who love good quality
Western art,” says Fritts. “We believe there is still a need for this genre of
work in Fort Worth and we are delighted to bring these artists together into one
venue to complement our existing collection.”

Deanna Dar, art columnist for Art Talk magazine, agrees with this assessment
of interest, particularly in what she terms “New Western Art”. “New Western
Art has proven increasingly popular with both collectors and the public during
the last several years,” she states. “With bold, bright colors, abstract and
geometric shapes and a general in-your-face feel wrapped around familiar
images of the west, this emerging style has caught the attention of galleries as
well.”

If you would like to experience the multifaceted original works of eight
prominent Western artists — and say hello to an old Fort Worth friend — drop by
the Monticello Fine Arts Gallery, open each week Tuesday through Saturday,
10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Monticello Fine Arts Gallery, formerly the Evelyn Siegel Gallery, is
located at 3700 West Seventh Street (at the corner of West Seventh and
Montgomery), just west of Downtown Fort Worth. For more information about these artists
or their work — or the Monticello Fine Arts Gallery, please call 817-731-6412.

Want to know more about Monticello Fine Arts Gallery? Keep reading!

Fact Sheet
Monticello Fine Arts Gallery
(Formerly Evelyn Siegel Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas)

Gallery History
Located at 3700 West Seventh Street in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, the
Monticello Fine Arts Gallery was established in 1959 in its present location as Carlin Art
Galleries by noted Fort Worth Art Collector Electra Carlin. At 45 years old,
it is the second oldest art gallery in Fort Worth.

Until 1987 Carlin owned and operated the gallery, exhibiting the works of
nationally known artists such as Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth as well as many
Fort Worth artists including Emily Guthrie-Smith and James Blake.

Local artist, educator and art collector Evelyn Siegel began what then became
known as the Evelyn Siegel Gallery in the fall of 1982, just down the street
from its present location. In the spring of 1990 she moved the gallery to its
current address, and she owned and operated it there until she retired during
the winter of 2004. During her career Siegel served as Department Chairperson
of the Visual Arts for Country Day School, and she spend her summers teaching
at the Anderson Ranch Art Center near Aspen, Colorado. A mentor to countless
fledgling artists, during her tenure Siegel also expanded the gallery from its
original 1000 square felt to its present 2700 square feet.

In March 2004 Siegel transferred gallery ownership to Glenna Crocker. Crocker
now serves as owner and curator, along with performing operations and
management duties. Crocker, Barbara Rogers and Evelyn Fritts handle the consignment
of art and artists.

Art & Artists
Artists on display now also include Shirley Kellerman, an award winning Fort
Worth landscape and still life painter, Deran Wright, a local and
internationally known sculptor, Carol Anthony, New Mexico artist whose Monotypes weave
together images of animals, people, nature and fantasy; Alexandra Nechita, an
abstract painter of international acclaim, and John Barger, a nationally known
landscape painter capturing the beauty of nature in oil, just to name a few.

Monticello Fine Arts Gallery is now seeking to broaden and increase its
clientele by adding new artists, new genres, and new mediums that appeal to a new,
discerning collector while adding to its well-established client base. In
addition to expansion of its art and artists, the Gallery is planning to launch a
major marketing and positioning campaign to raise public awareness of the "art
district" that sleeps in the heart of Fort Worth’s renown Cultural District,
to increase its own retail market share, and to attain a higher profile in the
Fort Worth art community.

Location
Monticello Fine Arts Gallery is situated at the top of the hill on the
northwestern edge of the Fort Worth cultural district, and area that is also home to
the Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, the Modern Art
Museum of Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and the
National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum. The Fort Worth Cultural District is
rated the third largest arts and cultural district in, Texas, and is bounded by
West Seventh Street, Montgomery Street, Interstate 30 and University Drive.

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