About the work

Dated 1988 on artist’s label attached verso. Artist’s description: “This is the profile of the San Esteban church at Acoma Pueblo. The old Sky City is a well preserved fortress which attracted the Spanish who built this church.” Artist retains all reproduction rights to this image. The work is housed under museum glass.

A dramatic depiction San Esteban del Rey at Acoma Pueblo (“Sky City”), in New Mexico. It is one of the best-preserved early mission churches in the United States, built between 1629 and 1642. It was the first mission church built in New Mexico and served as the model for others erected in this region.

The massive unadorned walls—made from a mix of clay and straw—are interrupted by only a few windows, giving the facade an imposing quality. In places the walls are seven feet thick, keeping the interior cool during the hot New Mexican summer, but also warm when the temperature drops.

About the artist…

A resident of Colorado, William Matthews is a realist painter best known for ranch landscapes and all manner of Western subjects. He was born in New York City, and in the late 1950s moved with his family to San Francisco. His professional career began in Los Angeles as a graphic artist designing album covers for Warner Bros. and Capitol Records.

Between 1975 and 1980, Matthews traveled throughout Spain, North Africa, Egypt and Great Britain, and China, where he found inspiring subjects for his paintings. He returned to Denver in 1980, ran a design studio for advertising powerhouse Evans & Bartholomew, then started his own design house. He closed that business in 1989 and began his career as a full-time artist.

Matthews credits the watercolorists of San Francisco and his mother as his earliest influences. During an interview 2014, he recalled a time when his mother—a painter in oils—took him to a museum show where he saw the watercolors of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Andrew Wyeth. He recalled looking at them and saying to himself “That's what I want to do.” In recent years his watercolors have increasingly focused on Western subjects, prompting Forbes Magazine to call him “the new Remington.”

Works by William Matthews are included in numerous private and public collections including the Autry Museum of the American West, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Eiteljorg Museum, The National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Gilcrease Museum, Joslyn Museum, Booth Western Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, Tucson Museum of Art, and the Denver Art Museum.

Sources used: Artist’s website www(dot)williammatthewsstudio(dot)com; AskArt, biography from the Nedra Matteucci Galleries website; “Husted: William Matthews on the artist's life,” interview with the artist, Denver Business Journal, November 18, 2014; “Mission Church, San Esteban del Rey, Acoma Pueblo,” essay by Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank.

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