In this collection of twenty-eight paintings, McKenna has turned his brush to some of Texas’ greatest treasures — beautiful and historic Palo Duro Canyon, one of the state’s most scenic and colorful places; the wildness of the Panhandle ranch country; and the rich desert mountain country of the Big Bend. Palo Duro Canyon, sculpted by weather and erosion over thousands of years, was the spiritual home of those savage raiders of the Southern Plains, the Comanches, perhaps the finest horsemen the world has ever known. It was here in the floor of Palo Duro that they were subdued forever in September of 1874 by Colonel Ranald Mackenzie’s cavalry. The canyon was also the birthing ground of some of Texas’ greatest ranches. Although it is a harsh land, there is a vibrant richness in natural formations and in the redness of the very soil. With his incredible ability to infuse his work with sunlight, McKenna captures Palo Duro’s wildness while softening its starkness with a welcoming sense of restfulness and calm. Among the state’s forty-two separate mountain ranges, with some one hundred peaks over a mile high, nowhere are there mountains more rugged, beautiful, and compelling than those of the Big Bend. For most of the nineteenth century and much of the early twentieth century, the Big Bend was a land of cowboys, Indians, prospectors, outlaws, settlers, longhorns, buried treasure, lost mines, and mysteries that still remain hidden today. McKenna’s works that deal with the Big Bend capture this wild land in all its savagery and serenity, its heat and coolness, sunlight and shadow, danger and repose. As is characteristic of McKenna’s work, these scenes are never forbidding but instead beckon to the viewer, inviting us to explore the vast terrain. McKenna’s very first oil painting was of an old farmhouse. Over the years, careworn old houses, barns, and churches, filled with nostalgia and the memory of earlier generations, have remained some of the artist’s favorite subjects. He elicits in us our own childhood recollections of visits to the country and, perhaps, explorations of old haunts and hiding places. Whether he is painting rusting tin, moldering wood, or dry adobe, he renders these structures with a touch of pathos that softens the heart and invariably takes us back to simpler times. In early adulthood, Kenny considered other career fields. We can all be grateful that he yielded to his passion for painting the great landscapes and scenery of Texas. — Robert M. Anderson |
Collectors Covey Wildlife & Sporting Art | (800) 521-2403 | gallery@collectorscovey.com |