C.S. Price

C.S. Price: A Portrait chronicles the life and work of an early Portland modernist painter (1874-1950), who emerged in the 1930s and '40s as a national figure and one of Oregon’s most important and influential artists.

Beginning his career as a Western illustrator, Price moved from Wyoming to Monterey, California, in the 1910s and '20s, where he encountered Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. In 1929 he moved to Portland, and during the next two decades, his work reflected modern European art, including German Expressionist painting, as well as his own brand of American modernism. In this lavishly illustrated and definitive volume, Roger Saydack documents Price’s career over a fifty-year period, placing his work within the broader context of twentieth century American and Pacific Northwest art.

C. S. Price: A Portrait, a major fifty-year retrospective exhibition will be on view at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem from June 16 to August 30, 2025.

“Saydack pushes further than visual description and stylistic assessment in his analysis of Price and his work. He fully identifies with Price as a person and natural philosopher who found in his iconic subjects—animals, laborers, structures, mountains, and the sea—deeper, transcendental meanings, aspects of what Price himself called ‘the One Big Thing,’ the essential underlying nature of reality.” —from the foreword by Roger Hull, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Willamette University