Vance Kirkland’s studio at the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art in the Golden Triangle Creative District offers a lens into the unique painting methods of one of Colorado’s most illustrious artists.
In his old studio—which was relocated about a half-mile west from its original site at Pearl Street and 13th Avenue in 2016—Kirkland would use straps so he could work face-down on paintings that were laid flat below him so that his signature dots of paint wouldn’t run. He’d mix paint with everything from antifreeze to booze in baby food jars to get a desired effect and used a skateboard to maneuver paintings as he worked on them.
The resulting output of abstract and surreal paintings is dazzling. Kirkland’s work includes more than 1,200 paintings over the course of five distinct periods that veered from realism to surrealism to abstract expressionism and finally to his dot paintings.
Kirkland’s quirky approach to art is indicative of the broader collection, which includes 1,400 pieces of decorative art. Christopher Herron, the museum’s interim director and deputy curator, shared a few of his favorites.
Carlo Bugatti Cabinet
Carlo Bugatti, the father of Ettore Bugatti of the sports car fame, was a prolific Italian designer and manufacturer of furniture in the early 1900s. His intricate Arts & Crafts cabinet at the Kirkland Museum is made of a long list of materials: mahogany, brass, veneered wool, colored and mirrored glass, copper, bone, and silk.
It all comes together into a single compelling whole. Bugatti’s ornate cabinets are “seriously crazy pieces,” says Herron. “Lots of influences: Asian, African, Arabic.”
Charles Rennie Mackintosh Chairs
Charles Rennie Mackintosh is known for meticulously designing tearooms in Glasgow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Scottish architect and artist often figured furnishings in his plans, with an emphasis on right angles and understated arcs.
The decorative art collection at the Kirkland Museum features a trio of Mackintosh’s distinctive tearoom chairs.
“The fact that we have three of them here displayed together is pretty rare,” notes Herron. “He set up these tearooms and just designed enough chairs to fill these individual rooms, so there just weren’t that many of them.”
Pawel Kontny Marble Dust Paintings
Pawel Kontny was a German-Polish artist who moved to Denver in 1962. Influenced by Karl Fred Dahmen, he started making a glue-like substance from marble dust that he applied to canvases and masonite boards to sculpt three-dimensional shapes that he would later paint with oil glazes. Kontny refined his marble dust technique during the 1960s, using his wife’s pantyhose to sift the material to the desired granularity.
“The marble dust is providing the texture, and then the colors are on top of that,” says Herron “These are pretty unique. We have a number of his paintings in our collection.”
The Kirkland Museum currently displays two of Kontny’s dust paintings: one of the Grand Canyon and another from his "Cosmos" series, inspired by the Moon landing in 1969.
Carden City Glass Bunny Cotton Dispenser
Perhaps the cutest piece in the museum’s decorative art collection, this frosted glass rabbit dispenses cotton balls from its backside.
“You stick the cotton balls up into the rabbit and pull them out individually,” laughs Herron.
Made by Paden City Glass of West Virginia in the 1930s, the bunny is on display in the Vanity & Vice: American Art Deco exhibition through January 2025.
“These are typically not on display,” says Herron. “All of this came out of storage for this exhibition.”