Growing up on his family’s ranch near Sterling, Colorado, where they raised American Quarter Horses, Skip Whitcomb knew early on he wanted to be an artist. Trained in figure study and illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California, he moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1971. Soon after, he met painter Ned Jacob and sculptor Ken Bunn, two central figures of a group of artists later referred to as “The Denver Group.” They convinced Whitcomb to embark on a career as a fine artist.

An accomplished outdoor painter, Whitcomb has received numerous awards including from Prix de West the 2021 Wilson Hurley Memorial Award for landscape and the 2017 Donald Teague Memorial Award for works on paper. His paintings reside in major public and private collections, and he has had several one-man shows and participated in numerous invitational exhibitions.

“The detail of the physical world is subdued in response to the spiritual one,” Whitcomb said. “Once you internalize the language of painting, you never see the world the same way. It never leaves you. The veil of rational order is lifted and what hangs in the air are sensations of painted possibilities. On good days, some would call it poetry.”