First Friday with Thom Ross

The storyteller who paints brings his Wild West to Palace Avenue

SANTA FE, N.M., [October 26, 2026]. Sorrel Sky Gallery welcomes Thom Ross on Friday, December 4, 2026, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the gallery’s Santa Fe location, 125 W. Palace Avenue. Ross lives and paints eighteen miles south in Lamy, in a house built to resemble the Alamo, and the evening is a chance to meet him a short drive from where the work is made.

Ross calls himself a storyteller who paints. He reads deeply on every subject before he picks up a brush, then sets aside realism for bold color and flattened, graphic forms that pull his figures out of a sepia past and into the present. The humor in the work always carries an argument about how Americans remember their history.

“Reality is the mask through which we must push ourselves to find the meaning,” Ross told the Wild West History Association Journal.

A Year of New Work

Ross arrives at First Friday after a full year. This summer he debuted a new body of paintings inspired by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, timed to the nation’s 250th anniversary, and recent profiles in Western Art Collector, Western Art & Architecture, and the Wild West History Association Journal have brought his work to a wider circle of collectors and historians.

At Sorrel Sky, recent arrivals include Chief Gall and Red Shirt, portraits drawn from the Plains wars; Curly Headed Doctor & the Magic Tule Rope, from the Modoc War of 1872–73; and two Tombstone paintings, Heading to the O.K. Corral and Doc and Wyatt. Works from his Ballet for Billy the Kid series, which recasts New Mexico’s most famous outlaw as a figure in motion, round out the selection.

“Our collectors don’t just buy a Thom Ross painting. They come back to tell us what they discovered in it,” said Shanan Campbell. “That’s what art should do. It should start a conversation that keeps going long after the painting goes home. December is the perfect time to gather around Thom and his work and let him tell those stories in person.”

About the Artist

Born in San Francisco in 1952 and raised in Sausalito, Ross found his calling at the 1976 centennial gathering at the Little Bighorn, where he came away convinced that much of what Americans believe about their history is myth. In 1984, he created The Catch, a diorama for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2005 he installed more than one hundred life-sized warriors and horses at Medicine Tail Coulee on the Little Bighorn battlefield, and in 2008 he restaged Buffalo Bill’s Wild West on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. He has illustrated more than twenty books, including the 100th anniversary edition of Owen Wister’s The Virginian, and True West magazine named him Best Original Period Western Painter in 2012. He has lived in Lamy since 2010.

Guests can meet Ross, see the paintings in person, and hear the stories behind them. Private viewings are available by appointment. View available work at sorrelsky.com/collections/thom-ross.

Event Details

Event: First Friday with Thom Ross

Date: Friday, December 4, 2026

Time: 5–7 p.m.

Location: Sorrel Sky Gallery, 125 W. Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM

Admission: Free and open to the public

Information: (505) 501-6555 | sorrelsky.com

About Sorrel Sky Gallery

The forward-thinking approach to the art world at Sorrel Sky Gallery pairs a distinctive collection of contemporary and traditional fine art and jewelry with an unparalleled client experience. Sorrel Sky Gallery retail locations are in Durango, Colorado (2002); Santa Fe, New Mexico (2014); New York, New York (2024); and East Hampton, New York (2025), as well as a robust online presence. Sorrel Sky Gallery represents several acclaimed artists, including Star Liana York, Ben Nighthorse, and David Yarrow.

High-resolution images are available upon request.

Gallery Locations:
Durango, CO: 828 Main Avenue
Santa Fe, NM: 125 West Palace Avenue
SoHo, NY: 419 West Broadway
East Hampton, NY: 58 Park Place