Oilman May Hit Gusher in Art

Standing among the cowboy paintings and sculpted broncos in his new Drifter Gallery, Michael Price is a man straddling two worlds.

As a businessman, he’s spent years trying to extract oil from the ground. As a gallery owner, he’s now trying to sell it on canvas.

So far, he’s had extraordinary success. More than 400 people showed up at the gallery’s recent opening in downtown Ojai. Price sold six sculptures and six paintings.

“The response has been absolutely overwhelming,” Price said. “I have calls into every artist we have here, saying ‘I hope you are painting and sculpting more.’ ”

The Ojai Valley has a long history as a beacon for Bohemian artists, but some worry that increased housing costs and more upscale galleries could change that.

Gerhard Steiniger, who runs the avant-garde BAU gallery down the road from the Drifter, said he loves western art, but he’s worried.

“Ojai is becoming an art town; we are getting many new galleries,” said Steiniger, whose own gallery contains modern sculpture, paintings and rock art. “The more art the better, but my personal view is Ojai could become like Carmel. Property prices are up and we are so close to Los Angeles and Malibu. I hope Ojai can stop that wave.”

Price’s is the latest high-priced gallery to emerge. It’s also the first to focus exclusively on western art.

The gallery has bronzes by world-renowned cowboy sculptor Mehl Lawson selling for $11,500, along with paintings going for more than $4,000 and a handmade fly rod for $800.

Price, who works in oil development at CH&I; Technologies in Santa Paula, is a longtime collector of western art. His wife, Leslie Clark, owns the Nomad Gallery two doors down and she is best known for works portraying nomadic peoples of Africa and India.

Clark, who designed the interior of her husband’s gallery, used her connections in the art world to attract some of the region’s best-known western painters and sculptors.

There are works by Bob Boomer, with his trademark bronze statues that have a wood-like appearance. Ojai painter Mick Reinman contributed several moody pieces of cowboys, bulls and horses. Noted realist painter Sherry Loehr has depictions of birds, butterflies and fruit of the Ojai Valley on display.

Price, 54, said that with the exception of a gallery in Los Olivos and the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Griffith Park, there are few places in Southern California to find upscale western art.

He hopes his gallery will fill that niche, taking its place beside the more-established western galleries of Jackson Hole, Wyo.; Billings, Mont.; Santa Fe, N.M., and Scottsdale, Ariz.

“Going from the oil business to this kind of oil business is difficult,” Price said. “It’s my first attempt to develop a product. I manage the day-to-day operations and find the artists.”

Aside from selling art, Price is offering fly-fishing expeditions around the world. Customers can book trips to the Amazon, Costa Rica, Northern California and Scotland, where they can stay at a sprawling estate house owned by Price’s aunt.

“We want to sell beautiful art and unique experiences,” he said.

Price grew up in upstate New York, the son of an English father and American mother. As a youth, Price developed a passion for horses and became an assistant race horse trainer and jockey in London. He later worked as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington before moving to California.

He and Clark have been married 21 years and keep horses on their 60-acre hilltop estate in Ojai. Their home is dominated by Clark’s vibrant, colorful paintings of Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads of West Africa. But Price has managed to wedge in his own western art collection in among the portraits and paraphernalia of Africa.

“I always said one day I would open my own gallery,” he said. “This is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I should have done this years ago.”