"Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments," Nathaniel Hawthorne once observed. In Colorado, some 1,000 peaks soar skyward for 10,000 feet or more. Fifty-four of these giants exceed 14,000 feet.
It is these lofty "fourteeners" that Conifer artist R. L. Wogrin is currently painting. Although more than 350 intrepid climbers--according to the Colorado Mountain Club--have scaled them all, no single artist has ever committed them all to canvas. Wogrin intends to complete his "Highest of the High" series late in 1988. With thirty already finished, the series is attracting attention.

"Crestone Needle 14, 197" - from the Highest of the High series

The Personality of Each Mountain
For Wogrin, painting the fourteeners is akin to painting the portraits of fifty-four distinct personalities.
"Each one has a soul, each one has its own personality. I spend time sitting and looking at each one to discover its secrets," Wogrin explains.
"Wogrin is able to create in his mind's eye the lighting a photographer might see only once a year under the most ideal circumstances," comments John Fielder, noted Denver wilderness landscape photographer. "His visual interpretation is both exciting and pleasing."
In New York, Christopher Forbes, vice president and associate publisher of Forbes, whose Forbes Magazine Art Collection purchased Blanca Peak and Mount Lindsey, says, "Wogrin catches the magic of the mountains in Colorado better than any living artist I know. it's almost as pleasurable owning one of his canvases as it is to view the peak in person."
Besides the Forbes' acquisitions, individual collectors have bought twenty-three paintings in the series, and the Phippen Memorial Museum in Prescott, Arizona, purchased Mount Bierstadt for its permanent collection.
While recognition and monetary rewards are welcome, they are by-products of an inner vision that clearly motivates the artist and has enabled him to undertake such a massive project. "Finally, now I'm satisfied that the direction I am going is dictated by my own desires. I no longer look at somebody else's work and say, 'I want to paint like that. '
"As an artist, you are what you are. My advice to myself--to any artist--is that if you want to be successful, develop yourself the very best that you can. If it takes a lifetime, so be it."
Wogrin, weathered and handsome at 60, is also an expert skier and avid backpacker. Lately, however, that inner vision keeps him indoors painting.
"I'm stubborn, very stubborn," he says. "I may bend when it comes to other parts of my life, but try and take me away from my art work and you will meet a stone wall."

A Studio in the Mountains

The setting in which Wogrin works is almost as heady as the peaks he paints. Outside the second-story studio in his contemporary home astride a mountain top near Conifer, the sky is a cloudless electric blue. Warm mid-morning sun is melting a thin veneer of wet snow which shatters occasionally and sections slide off the steep roof with a loud "whoosh."
The view is panoramic. To the north, Mount Evans, the Flatirons near Boulder and the sharp point of Longs Peak. To the east, Denver's skyscrapers wade waist deep in a puddle of murky air. On an easel positioned to catch the northern light is a large canvas, an almost-finished painting of Little Bear. Nearby, a cart is filled with an orderly clutter of supplies--paper towels, linseed oil, brushes. Across the room, bookshelves are crammed with art volumes and old copies of National Geographic.
The artist and his wife Irene moved to Conifer in 1984, leaving behind a lifetime--except for Wogrin's stint in the U. S. Navy during World War II--in Denver.

Background
Wogrin grew up near Denver's stockyards. Summers were spent in the family's cabin on a wooded hillside above Evergreen. Wogrin remembers filling notebooks with drawings and sketches of the mountains as early as elementary school. But his dad, a hard-working Union Pacific Railroad steward, admonished: "Become a doctor, artists starve."
Yet, it was a career as an artist that Wogrin wanted. Determined to realize his dream, he enrolled at Denver University after World War II, graduating in 1949 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
His first jobs were as a freelance commercial artist, drawing illustrations for the telephone directory's yellow pages, catalogs and newspaper ads. Soon he formed an art agency, which later mushroomed into an advertising agency. When he found himself saddled with increasing administrative duties and less actual art work, he left the agency and turned to architectural illustrations.
As an independent artist working out of his Denver home, Wogrin painted watercolor renderings of "every imaginable type building." In 1953 he and Irene were married and four sons and one daughter followed. In the two decades of raising and supporting a family, Wogrin estimates he executed some 5,000 architectural renderings.
A mid-life career crisis in the mid-1970s forced him to refocus his goals. He wanted to end the frantic pace.
"Multiple clients would need jobs completed in three days," he recalls. "Sometimes I had to work all day and all night. Enough was enough."
Looking for a way out of the rat race, Wogrin and a partner designed a colorful carryout tray for use in fast food restaurants. After investing considerable capital on marketing their product, the partners were about to sign a lucrative contract with a restaurant chain when a personnel change among the chain's executives ended their dreams.
Wogrin returned to architectural illustrations, but not for long. The tray fiasco gave him the courage to attempt a medium and a subject matter he had considered for years but never tried: mountain landscapes in oils.
Wogrin emphasizes Irene's willingness to underwrite his dreams. When the tray venture failed, she returned to a career as an interior designer at Michael Handler Carpets & Draperies Inc. in Lakewood. With her regular income, Wogrin began to take fewer architectural assignments and began teaching himself the demanding techniques of oil painting.

Focusing on Fine Art
Some twelve years later, Wogrin spends most days painting mountain scenery from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Besides the "Highest of the High" canvases, he also paints other Western landscapes. Occasionally, he enters competitions. In his first juried competition at the George Phippen Memorial Art Show in Prescott, in 1981, he received a second place in oil. In 1986, he won first place in oil at the Western Art Rendezvous in Littleton.
But shows take time and they take him away from his studio. He leaves only for what he jokingly calls "necessary research" for each canvas.
Specifically, each fourteener necessitates an on-site inspection, and Wogrin hikes or backpacks into each locale. Often, his companion on these treks is his oldest son, Robert Wesley Wogrin, who also acts as his father's business manager. Robert is operations manager at the Denver Art Forum, a gallery featuring regional artists, including R.L. Wogrin.
Before embarking on one of these scouting trips, Wogrin studies topographical maps to ascertain exactly where he wants to position himself. Once there, Wogrin does several preliminary sketches. His son, meantime, photographs the peak. By the time they leave, Wogrin has gathered enough impressions and data to begin conceptualizing the peak's portrait.
"When I was at the Maroon Bells, there was lots of sunshine and the aspens were a brilliant color. But it wasn't until almost evening that the storm clouds began moving in and changed the light dramatically."
When he finishes the "Highest of the High" paintings, Wogrin envisions endless possibilities for other High Country series - Rocky Mountain National Park, Glenwood Canyon, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
"And, I'd like to do Royal Gorge," he adds. "I'd love to hike down into the floor of the canyon and paint it from that vantage point, looking up. Can you imagine the color, the shadows, the lighting?"
R. L. Wogrin loves Colorado, loves his art.
"I can paint until the day I die and still continue to grow as an artist," he says. "Renoir, toward the end of his life, said, 'I think I'm finally beginning to understand."
"The only frustration," he concludes quietly, "there isn't enough time to finish them all."

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