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The Oklahoma Arts Council recently acquired two paintings for the State Art Collection, which are currently on exhibit in the Betty Price Gallery at the State Capitol.

D.J. Lafon (1929-2011)

As visitors enter the gallery, they are now greeted by The Banker by the late D.J. Lafon (1929-2011), which was recently gifted by Ken and Mary Ann Fergeson, Tom Gray, and Bob Sullivan.

From the artist’s long running series investigating people of power, generals, popes, business leaders, and politicians, The Banker represents Lafon’s lifelong exploration and fascination with the complex relationship between self-identity and occupation and the often captivating and perplexing nature of people in positions of power.

Lafon said, "One of the most mysterious and difficult things is people. Why do they do what they do? I used to spend a lot of time looking through magazines to see 'what is General so and so doing? And what is this person doing?' And you do hear a little bit about businessmen now, but we really don't know what they do. I don't know what they do really behind closed doors. They are kind of mysterious."

Combined with its existing holdings of earlier works by Lafon, the collection now includes two large paintings from Lafon’s Tricycle Series from the late 1960s and early 1970s and a three-dimensional wood sculpture created in the mid-nineties, which are all recognized as significant examples of Lafon’s ability to work with diverse materials and mastery of rendering a wide range of subjects during his prolific career.

The Artist

A notoriously humble and genuine artist with just a touch of sarcasm, Lafon was born in Ogden, Utah and took an early interest in art. He received his B.F.A. (1960) and M.F.A. (1962) in painting and drawing from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He worked as an illustrator and taught painting and drawing before assuming the chairmanship of the Art Department at East Central University in Ada in 1964. Following his retirement from that position in 1984, he established a studio in Norman and devoted himself to his artwork.

He served as the Visual Arts Director for the Oklahoma Arts Institute and Guest Artist at Wichita State University in 1990. Lafon has been the recipient of many honors and awards including the Governor’s Arts Award in 1992. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Paseo Arts Association in 2007. He presented his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions and his work has been acquired by many museums, galleries, and public collections including the State Art Collections of Oklahoma and Utah, the University of North Carolina Art Museum, Springfield Art Museum, Oklahoma City Art Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, Southwestern Bell Telephone, Conoco and Koch Industries. He has also completed various public commissions for Warner Brothers, the University of Oklahoma School of Dentistry, and the Ada Public Library, among others.

Jean Richardson (b. 1940)

Known best for her large, abstract paintings of horses, Jean Richardson has had a lifelong interest in Western "myth." Although she uses the contemporary vocabulary of modern painting, she finds deep connections to the frontier west. Using a palette of jewel tones and deep earthen hues, she splashes colors across a heavily textured background letting her image emerge. Almost hidden in an explosion of brush strokes and thick application of paint utilizing a palette knife, the horses of Richardson's imagination plunge and leap across her canvas.

According to Richardson, “the image of the horse is the perfect vehicle to express my true subjects - motion and energy. The horse as a real being is lovely in itself and I enjoy the power, the speed, and the physical beauty of the animal. My paintings, however, take this real image and make it a symbol. The horse as a metaphor for the human spirit - unbridled, striving, sometimes heroic, often restless, full of energy, floating above us, calling us to other realms. In this tradition, but in the contemporary vocabulary of twentieth century painting, I have tried to explore my subject and find therein my own emotional response.”
While bold in execution, Steppeland Summer is distinct from the collection’s earlier painting by Richardson, an impressionistic painting in muted tones of a single figure titled Harper’s Loan, created in 1974. The collection’s two works by Richardson demonstrate her evolution from impressionism to abstraction and artistic progression from the figure to the horse, which has become her main subject over the last two decades.

The Artist

A native Oklahoman, Richardson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. She attended the Art Students League in New York City. She has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Her work has been included in numerous public and private collections including the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Phillips Petroleum Corporation, Marriott Hotels Corporation, and the Oklahoma State Art Collection. She currently resides and works in her studio on her large acreage in Oklahoma City.