Untitled Painting of a Mountain Landscape signed Sabo [SOLD]

Although the location chosen by the artist for this painting is not noted, nor is the date she painted it noted, it appears to have been painted in a Northern New Mexico mountain area in the beginning of wintertime.  Sabo loved painting mountain scenes, aspen trees, snow, and creeks or rivers.  It is quite possible that this was painted in an area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range at Santa Fe. Her best paintings incorporate snow, a very difficult subject to paint.  Achieving various colors of snow in shadows is extremely hard to achieve but Sabo was a master at doing so.

Betty Jean Sabo, who passed away only a couple months ago, was one of Albuquerque's most famous contemporary artists. She was a student at some point of Carl Von Hassler, probably in the early years of her career. She was best known as a painter until later in her career at which time she switched to sculpture.  Her paintings were so popular they were snatched up before the paint dried.

She studied art at UNM in the late 1940s and was a renowned painter before she began to create the signature bronzes in her mid-60s. The Albuquerque Museum commissioned one of her first pieces; the 1995 bronze "Julia Resting," of a woman seated on a bench outside the museum's front doors. She also sculpted the Botanical Garden work featuring Clyde and Carrie Tingley, neighbors of Sabo's when she was a child. Clyde Tingley was an early Governor of New Mexico.

Paintings by Sabo are relatively rare as those who knew her when she was a painter have tended to keep those they purchased. It has been a number of years since she painted, so there are no recent ones for collectors to purchase and there will be no more as Sabo recently passed away.

Sabo's legacy, other than the fine art she produced, will be her determination in 1986 to acquire for the Albuquerque Museum the large quantity of fine art amassed at her alma mater, Albuquerque High School.  Graduating classes had developed the routine of purchasing a painting for the school at graduation each year.  The school collection contained paintings by Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest Blumenschein, Bert Phillips and Carl Redin.  A Santa Fe gallery was attempting to purchase the collection but Sabo was determined it should stay in Albuquerque.  She succeeded and that collection now resides permanently at the museum.

This painting is signed in lower left Sabo.  It appears to be in the original vintage frame which is in very good condition.

Condition: the painting has just been professionally cleaned and is ready to hang and enjoy

Provenance: from a gentleman from Denver who inherited it from his father’s estate.  His father was a friend and co-worker with Betty Sabo’s father and this was a gift from Sabo’s father to the father of the current owner.