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Born and raised in rural southeastern Colorado, Michael Ome Untiedt maintains a studio in Denver. Traveling extensively, he is known as a painter of the world who sees with a westerner’s eye. Through the color, brush strokes, and symbolic subject matter of his paintings, he attempts to examine the human predicament and its connections to the landscape and history of the American West. He is driven to portray twenty-first-century psychology on a nineteenth-century saddle! Untiedt has participated in numerous shows including the Western Masters Art Show and Sale, Settler’s West Miniatures Show and  Art of the American West Show, the Booth Museum’s Art South of the Sweet Tea Line Show, Master’s of Montana, CM Russell Art Show and Auction, The Russell, The Briscoe Museum Night of the Artists, and the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Auction. He received the 2005 Ralph Tuffy Berg Award at the CM Russell Show in Great Falls, MT, and  2014 Art Committee’s Choice Award at the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio, Best of Show at the 2014 Western Masters Art Show and Sale and The Wells Fargo Gold Award at the 2014 Buffalo Bill Art Show and Auction. In 2016 he was awarded the North Star Award at the Heart of the West Contemporary Western Art Show in Bozeman, Montana.

“Crossing at Red River Station

The Chisholm Trail was a route that Texas cattleman used to trail their cattle north to the railroads in Kansas, and hence to eastern markets. It was used for over twenty years, millions of Texas longhorns finding their way to eastern markets, or new western rangelands. The principle crossing of the broad Red River, the southern boundery of the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and the state of Texas, was at Red River Station, northwest of present day Nocona, Texas. Crossing a river with a herd of cattle was tricky business. One technique for balky cattle who did not want to enter the water was to drive them at high speed directly at the water, hoping to "stampede" them into and then across the water. Doesn't that sound a lot like how many of us deal with obstacles even today; putting our heads down and barging headlong into the problem!