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PrintArtist spotlight: painter Larry Fanning
He didn't begin painting full time until 1986, when he was 50 years old. "I didn't recognize and acknowledge the talent I have," he says.
Larry Fanning has only one regret — that he got a late start on his fine art career.
Medicine Skull — Blackfoot Shaman, oil
He didn't begin painting full time until 1986, when he was 50 years old. "I didn't recognize and acknowledge the talent I have," he says.
Fanning was born in Kansas and attended Kansas State University before becoming a mechanical artist for the Boeing aircraft company.
He then put his art aside and spent 17 years serving as a non-denominational minister in California.
After taking a trip through the Rocky Mountains, Fanning fell in love with Colorado.
In 1986 he moved to Denver, where he resumed his art career in earnest. Of Colorado he says, "In its richly endowed land, its wildlife, and in the dreams of its people, there pulses an energy that is sacred and life-giving."
Fanning is always working on about a dozen paintings, while at the same time trying to keep up with his collectors and commissions.
His work is in such high demand that he doesn't have a painting of his own hanging on the wall. For Fanning, a self-taught artist, painting is far more than the mechanics.
"It's about accomplishing a story and creating a story in the mind of the viewer," he says. "A writer tries to create a picture in the mind of a reader using words, and a painter tries to tell a story."
And there are many stories to be told in the subjects Fanning paints: the Old West, Native Americans, wildlife.
"It's the little things that make the best stories," he adds. "Carrying water from the well. Finding a calf in a snowstorm."
Fanning attempts to present the Old West as accurately as possible. He researches guns, saddle, tack, and clothing.
His challenge is to provide honest characterizations of the harsh and difficult lives of the cowboys, ranchers, and Indians that inhabited the land he loves.
