LIVING INDUCTEE
GEORGE GOGAS
DISTRICT 11 - YEAR 2025
George Gogas is an artist, scholar, teacher and horseman. He loves hearing a good Western story and is not above telling one himself. He was born in Missoula, Montana, to Greek immigrant parents July 21, 1929, and has lived in Missoula most of his life. He has stated he would live nowhere else.
As a young boy, George loved horses. His father rented horses to ride, which was a great treat for George. His father also hung a Charlie Russell re-production of The Horse Hunters in George’s bedroom, and it still hangs in George’s bedroom today. George’s art was tied to horses early in life. At five or six, he first drew stick horses with riders on their backs. Soon after, he drew everything, and his father drew with him. George was always encouraged by his parents.
In high school, George learned about rodeo from ranching friends. In college, he joined the rodeo club, and competing on his own horse, this was a big step up.
In the fifties, and after graduating from college and serving in the U.S. Army, George settled in Missoula where he joined the fledgling Quarter Horse Association. He took the training and showing of Quarter Horses seriously. The show arena was a better fit for George than the rodeo arena. He honed his horsemanship skills to a high level, seemingly to have an aptitude for teaching horses to voluntarily work with him on cue rather than using the jerk and pull methods of some cowboys.
Riding quality Quarter Horses, he won the high point Western Riding event run in 1975, 1976, and 1978. His two best geldings, Plenty Eyed Jack and Rocky Poco, won their Register of Merit certificate on the Montana circuit. Rocky Poco was high point Western Pleasure gelding in 1967.
George helped to found the Western Montana Quarter Horse Association and served as director of the Montana Quarter Horse Association. He was Ring Steward at the first World Show in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1974 and the second in 1975. In 1977, the show moved to Oklahoma City where George served as Ring Steward. He was an AQHA judge from 1977 through 1985.
When George quit showing, he kept horses for pleasure and trained three and four year olds for a friend in Idaho. George loved herding cattle for ranchers and heeling calves at branding. Outdoors riding was relaxing for a horse and rider after the stressful training for showing.
George attended the University of Montana, graduating with a B.A. in art. Instructors Aden Arnold and Jim Dew encouraged him to attend graduate school. After two years in the ROTC program, George studied painting in Seattle at the University of Washington, receiving his MFA in 1954. While attending college, he learned there is more to art than painting realistic Western images. He began to study and create abstract art, including Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, these being popular movements at the time. Working with form, color relationships and movement was exciting. George promptly began to work in different styles but mainly Abstract Expressionism.
George’s graduate school mentor was Alden Mason, a recognized Seattle painter teaching at the University of Washington. Alden encouraged George to show his work and, doing so, he became one of the up and coming artists in Seattle.
Upon graduating, George taught art classes a few years in the Seattle area but became homesick for Montana. He returned home to teach at Missoula County High School. He could now teach, work on his art, and have his horses. George retired from teaching in 1985 to put all his energy into creating art.
George spent eight hours a day in the studio thinking and working on his paintings. The time was well spent, as his painting improved. George created two important series, (a series in painting is a group of pieces of the same theme but different. The artist explores style and content over time with numerous pieces.) The Montana Midnight group was shown at the University of Montana in Missoula and Rubens Revisited was shown at the Holter Museum in Helena. Both series were painted in the Abstract Expressionist style. There are no recognizable images but lots of movement and color. Montana Midnight is influenced by the midnight sky. Rubens Revisited is from the composition of Rubens’s painting and interpreted with color and movement. Rubens Revisited consisted of thirty works. It was George’s first one-man show in Montana.
In 1987, George completed a painting that had been revolving in his mind for some time. The basic composition taken from Charlie Russell’s painting Jerked Down was painted in a Picasso Cubistic style. At 59” x 84”, it is not a small piece. The title, Judith Basin Encounter; When Charlie and Pablo met on the Open Range, symbolizes the conflict between realistic Western art and contemporary art. The work was well received, and George was encouraged to do more. The second was Judith Basin Encounter; When Charlie and Pablo Had a Drink Together, taken from Charlie’s In Without Knocking. Later titles had to do with current events.
There are now sixty-four pieces. From 1995 to 1997, the pieces toured eleven Montana venues with the Montana Art Gallery Directors Association.
The Judith Basin Encounter paintings are in national museums’ permanent collections, including The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, Missoula Art Museum, and Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia.
The next important series, Too Lazy to Work, depicts bull riders. These colorful, action-packed paintings were inspired by the PBR’s singular bull riding event. The title, Too Lazy to Work, came from a bull rider’s comment, “I’m too lazy to work and too nervous to steal, so I ride bulls.”
George continued to work on abstract and realistic art into his eighties when he retired. Now he looks out the window from his easy chair and says, “The sky outside is blue; we must be in Montana.”
Photo credit - Geoffrey Sutton
Inducted into the Living Category - George Gogas passed away on September 6, 2025 at age 96.