“It brings me great joy to create something that might touch the soul of another.”
— M. C. Poulsen
M. C. “Mike” Poulsen is an Award Winning Contemporary Western artist known for his Landscapes, Wildlife, Indian and Western Lifestyle Paintings.
M. C. Poulsen (b. 1952, Akron Ohio) and moved to Cody, Wyoming when he was thirteen to work on his parents 15,000-acre cattle ranch. After serving in the Marine Corps, he studied art at Arizona State University in Tempe, then dropped out to study with his neighbor and reknown Western artist James Bama. His love for Art and the West evolved from working and painting the people he has met and the scenes he has observed throughout the years. Early in his painting career, Poulsen painted landscapes, still lives and figurative scenes but after he discovered Western paintings by Charles Russell he decided to focus on Western Art. Poulsen exhibited a one-man show at the Capitol Rotunda in July of 1992 in Washington, D.C. and was the first Western artist to exhibit in Russia as part of a cultural exchange.
M. C. “ Mike” Poulsen
M. C. “Mike” Poulsen
Today, Poulsen’s art career has spanned over 45 years. He participates annually in shows and exhibitions across the country, including those held by the Autry National Center in Los Angeles; the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana; the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis. His work is featured in galleries in New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, California and Arizona.
His portraiture work has led him to commissions for the Pentagon, The John Hopkins Hospital, The Smithsonian Native American Museum, LDS Church Museum, Brigham Young University Museum as well as numerous private commissions from prominent figures across the United States.
Inspiration is what Mike Poulsen life and his art are all about. Revealed in his paintings is a sensitivity, honesty and accuracy born of uncommon experience with a lust for life.
Poulsen continues to live and paint in Cody Wyoming, where he and his wife have built their home on some of the original acreage owned by his family ranch.