R. Tom Gilleon is one of a handful of artists that can look back at 2009 as a year that all the hard work and persistence paid dividends. I don’t believe a month passed that an art magazine did not choose him for its cover, run a feature story or review a show. He was the 2009 Jackson Hole Arts Festival’s Feature Artist. In a year that that desirability and potential value drove the art market, owning one of Gilleon’s contemporary western paintings rose to the top of many collectors’ lists.

Of those works, his 60” x 120” paintings like T. . .