by The greeter at the Redlin Art Center said “you’ve heard of Terry Redlin, of course,” to which we both replied “uhhhh.” No, never, sorry! But the center looked interesting and we are always up to learn about new artists, so in we went!
The Center in Watertown, South Dakota holds more than 160 of Terry’s original paintings. It is housed in a massive 52,000 square foot building designed by Terry’s son Charles. It opened in 1997, ten years before Terry retired. Because the center was planned while Terry was still actively painting, it is focused on his later works (every original after 1985 is in the center). But it does include originals spanning his career and life.
Terry was born in 1937 near where the museum is located. After the loss of a leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 15, he was able to attend college on a state-sponsored scholarship program for students with disabilities. He studied graphic design at the St. Paul School of Associated Arts.
His first job was sketching drawings for the back of playing cards! He later worked as a draftsman at an architectural and engineering firm, and then as a designer, illustrator, layout artist, and ultimately as an editor at a magazine publishing company.
By 1975, however, he was restless, so he developed a five-year-plan to make a living as a wildlife artist.
He began selling prints on his own and in 1977 his work Winter Snows was featured on the cover of The Farmer magazine.
It seems his plan came to fruition, since before long he was selling original paintings for $50,000 to $75,000 each!
Terry’s art captures the “romantic view of America’s rural landscape highlighted by the glow of golden sunsets, cozy campfires, and starry skies.” Perhaps the reason the greeter assumed we knew of him is because every year from 1991 to 1998 U.S. Art magazine named Terry “America’s Most Popular Artist.” He has sold more than two million prints!
Terry retired in 2007 and passed away in 2016 at the age of 78 after a nine-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. He won many awards and accolades over his decades-long career.
The cover photo is Twilight Time, 1996.
In the above paintings, Terry explores the same viewpoint at different times of the year and at different times of the day. In Good Morning, America it is a Spring morning, and the children are off to fish as the flag is being raised. Good Evening, America it is the end of a fall day, the flag is being lowered and the children are at home.
In his America the Beautiful series (two of which are above), Terry uses eight paintings to represent the lyrics of the song.
My favorite works at the center were the American Portraits, a series of seven paintings (four of which are pictured here), which tell the story of a young man’s life in a series of “firsts.” It was inspired by Terry’s brother-in-law, Charles Langenfeld, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968. It shows the same home and family changing with the passage of time. The last one made me cry.
