Michael Mahoney Fine Art
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Mahoney Fine Art |
|
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
||||
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Michael Mahoney's great, great grandfather, Francis J. Mahoney, ventured west as a stone carver in the 1880's. First to San Fransisco, then to Denver, CO. where he helped build the U.S. Mint and a Cathedral in downtown Denver. On the other side of Michael's family, his great-grandfather, Bill Ryan was a friend of Buffalo Bill Cody. His grandfather, William (Jack) Ryan, is in the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame. Michael's parents moved from Wyoming to Montana where he grew up fishing, hiking and painting in the Absoraka-Beartooth Wilderness, north of Yellowstone Park. Art was always a big part of Michael's life. He was
a gifted drawer at a very early age. His love of art and experience in the outdoors of Montana led him to work for many years
as a Natural Illustrator. He created hundreds of complex wildlife and habitiat paintings for clients like; the U.S. Forest
Service, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, Montana Fish and Game, and many others. In 1991 Michael started
something called Trout Portraits. He created detailed paintings of fish for catch & release fishermen.The idea took off
and Michael painted hundreds of fish caught all around the world. The service expanded to all types of saltwater gamefish.
Outdoor writer Jim Merritt wrote a feature article about Michael's work for 'Field & Stream' magazine entitled
'The Master's Hand'. Michael painted on TV for an ESPN fishing program and his work was editorialized in virtually every
fly-fishing periodical. He continued to do the commissions but also began working on a style that would be more interesting
in galleries. Michael took his unsurpassed knowledge of fish and recently turned it 'loose' in a appealing,
new technique he has developed. In
a day when so many things have been done, Michael's textured works are fresh, interesting and unusually energetic.
And while the paintings are loosely intuitive, they carry with them a depth that comes from a richly credible process.
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
 Below are 9 examples of countless illustrations Mike did over the years. Click to enlarge  Migratory Birds
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 2  
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 3  
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
