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Dean St. Clair Dean St. Clair was a mainstay of the Buffalo Bill Art Show since his first appearance in 1995. Along with wife and artist Linda St. Clair, he energized the Quick Draw with his lively spirit. Keeping that spirit alive, the Dean St. Clair Memorial Award will award $2,500 to the artist selected as the Quick Draw’s people’s choice winner. A native of Taylorsville, North Carolina, Dean attended Harris School of Art in Nashville, and married Linda there in 1987. He lived in Dallas and New Mexico before he settled with Linda in Del Norte, Colorado, realizing his dream of having a ranch with horses where he continued to paint timeless scenes of working cowboys. Friend Steven Marshall Newton recalls Dean’s adventurous nature, insatiable curiosity and capacity to become “more alive with every passing day.” Like an “infinitely patient carpenter,” he used art to “unearth the little truths beneath the surface.” “Dean didn’t bother stopping to test the wind before he ventured off across some seemingly impenetrable border,” Newton says. “He just packed up and headed off into the Wild West frontier. He didn’t just paint the West. He lived it. That was the Dean we remember, and our lives are far richer for his sharing his free spirit with us.” Dean's children, Lyn, Bret, Hal, and Kevin, were all deeply influenced by his artistic talents and they continue to be involved in the arts today. Contributions to the Dean St. Clair Memorial Fund — sponsor of the memorial award bearing his name — may be made to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 720 Sheridan Ave., Cody, WY 82414.
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