Martin Grelle (b. 1954)

Texas-born Martin Grelle is known for his high-color images of Western life, from Native American subjects to cowboys. Grelle's paintings reveal the power of the American landscape through the use of dramatic light and shadow and by telling stories of the people who live off the land. The artist says of the present work, "Four Blackfeet have come upon a small trunk hung up in the branches of a fallen tree on the bank of a river near what is now Glacier National Park. One of them has dismounted and is using his lance to retrieve it. What treasures laying within the trunk are soon to be discovered - a trunk most likely lost in a hasty crossing by a startled trapper."