20 Winter Street
Pembroke, MA 02359
United States
Founded in 2005, Copley Fine Art Auctions is a boutique auction house specializing in antique decoys and American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Over the course of the last two decades, the firm has set auction records for not only individual decoy makers, but also entire carving regions. Copley...Read more
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Jul 11, 2024
Mike Stidham (b. 1954)
Around They Go - Tarpon, 2024
signed "M. Stidham" lower left
oil on linen on board, 24 by 42 in.
Mike Stidham spent his early years in Palm Desert, California, where he dreamed of becoming a desert painter. As a young teen, he began trout fishing in Colorado, selling his early watercolors through local fly shops, and he worked as a fishing guide in Idaho. Among his honors and accomplishments, in 1992 the artist produced the Saltwater Sportfishing Stamp for Texas and, for a time, held the IGFA record for a hammerhead shark taken on a fly rod. He says, “To me the painting is about the sense of place, the feeling of being there, the various colors of the rocks and rhythm and movement of the gravel bed.” Today, Stidham paints from his Sandy, Utah, studio as well as on the many fishing trips he takes to see, study, and pursue his subjects in their natural environment.
"It is one thing to paint a fish as if simply describing it. It is something quite different to make a painting about it. My work is of course influenced by years spent in pursuit of fish. But I have recently found new artistic energy studying the likes of John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla. Tarpon are a favorite of mine both as an angler and as an artist," Stidham writes.
Literature: Norman Kolpas, “Artist Spotlight: Mike Stidham,” Western Art and Architecture, December 2022-January 2023.
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