Art Projects « Bob Ekelund

Art Projects

Ekelund’s career was centered in academic economics, but creating and studying music and art as an amateur — including art history and collecting art — have always been serious interests. The transformation of ideas and even the commonplace into visual representation is an eternal endeavor of human beings. Largely self-taught, a study of the great artists of the past, European and American, has been a guide along with studio classes in drawing and watercolor, including workshops with Iain Stewart and others. His special interest has been to render the vast, mysterious and spiritual landscape of Taos, New Mexico and its environs in a variety of media. Each year, for two decades, he has painted arroyos, valleys, mountains and abandoned adobes in the areas around Taos. He also created still lives, a pictorial study of the Spanish missions of Texas and the Southwest and works relating to European sites. Most recently he has focused on floral paintings derived from the garden and on a linocut series on the Taos mountains. See Adventures of an Amateur: Art by Bob Ekelund (Auburn, Al., 2018).

Articles and Op Eds on Art

The Persistence of Myth and Tragedy in Twentieth-Century Mexican Art (Colorado Springs: Taylor Museum of Art, 2004), with Catherine Walsh.
“Investment in Early American Art: The Impact of Transactions Costs and No-Sales on Returns,” Journal of Cultural Economics, (2016), 40:335-357, with Seth C. Anderson, John D. Jackson and Robert D. Tolllison.
“Age and Productivity: An Empirical Study of Early American Artists,” Southern Economic Journal, (2015) 81:1096-1116, with John D. Jackson and Robert D. Tollison.
“Outdated Rules are Killing Museums: Here’s How Things Can Change,” Artsy (May 30, 2018), with Michael DeMarsche. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-outdated-rules-killing-museums-things-change.
“Museum Economics: How the Contemporary Art Boom is Hurting the Bottom Line, The Conversation (August 2, 2016). https://theconversation.com/museum-economics-how-the-contemporary-art-boom-is-hurting-the-bottom-line-58619. Reprinted in the Washington Post August 4, 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/04/why-the-booming-contemporary-art-market-is-bad-for-art-museums/?utm_term=.d0616ef9f08f and elsewhere.