A huge congratulations to Kim Wiggins on being awarded the 2026 Prix De West Purchase Award. Considered by many to be the most prestigious museum recognition in the American West, this honor is incredibly well deserved.
What makes this award especially meaningful is that museums are increasingly looking beyond traditional Western realism and recognizing artists working within a broader modernist tradition, what we categorize as “Western Regionalism.”
Wiggins has been painting in his unique style longer than almost any artist working in the West today. His influences range from Frederick Remington and Herbert Dunton to Alexandre Hogue, Mexican Folk Art, and beyond. The result is work that feels completely his own.
Western art has deep roots in the modernist movement of the early 1900s, but much of the genre shifted toward traditional realism beginning in the 1970s. It is encouraging to see institutions once again embracing artists with personal and original visions of the West.
This feels like a win for all of us. Congratulations, Kim!
Kim Wiggins
How the West Was Won – Chisum at Castle Gap
Oil, 60 x 48 in.
2026
“In 1866, cattle kings Chisum, Goodnight, and Loving drove 3,000 longhorns west, establishing the most famous cattle trail in American history. The epic drive helped shape the legend of the American cowboy and inspired works like Red River and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. This painting shows John Chisum and Wild West icon Frank Chisum battling to control a massive stampede at Castle Gap near the Pecos River in southern Texas after crossing 80 miles of harsh desert.”
Maxwell Alexander Gallery artists G. Russell Case & Grant Redden were both also award winners at the 2026 Prix de West.
Case was awarded the Wilson Hurley Memorial Award for Outstanding Landscape for Into Red Canyon Oil on linen on board, 48 x 36 in.
Redden was awarded the Great American Cowboy Award Anxiously Engaged Oil, 24 x 30 in.
