In 1980, Fred Cowie visited the
home of famed Blackfeet Indian artist King (short for Kingsley) Kuka
in East Glacier, Montana. Virtually every day for three months Fred
just sat and watched King paint. Finally he said, “King, I can do
that!” King, professional artist and art teacher, said, gently, “No
Fred, it takes a long time, sometimes decades, to develop the talent
to do this.” To which Fred answered, “No! I don’t mean I can do that
now, I mean I have that inside of me too, I can do that!”
King just recently died and his death was the headline story
in the Great Falls Tribune, reprinted in many papers across Montana
and the West. Kuka paintings cover the walls in Fred’s house and there
isn’t a day when he paints that he doesn’t remember watching King,
alternately doing strokes and playing with his kids.
Fred put in his decades, as King had advised him to do, and
what you see are the results. This gallery is more like a museum than
a sales place. Most of Fred’s watercolors are approximately 8x10 and
moderately priced. The ones you see here are representative. |