Paul Kontny was enchanted by Western landscapes. His groundbreaking work is still a definitive part of Colorado’s cultural history.

Over the past two centuries Colorado’s scenic and atmospheric qualities dominated by the Rocky Mountains have inspired many visiting and resident artists, both male and female, working in a variety of styles and media. While known during their lifetimes through exhibitions and attendant press coverage, their careers subsequently have not received much attention or documentation so that some of them have all but disappeared from public memory. The exhibitions of Bernard Arnest (1917–1986) this year in Colorado Springs at the Cottonwood Center for the Arts and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College once again put the spotlight on Arnest—who worked for forty-plus years in Colorado and outside the state—and provide an occasion to survey his notable career.