Oregon painter Don Prechtel mines the past for ideas

WHEN SOME ARTISTS set out to do a painting, they hire a model. When Creswell artist Don Prechtel wants to visualize one of the scenes he paints, he may need a cast of thousands, including soldiers, horses and 19th century cannons. Prechtel, who is nationally known for his realistic Western scenes and Civil War battle paintings, can't exactly fit an entire cavalry charge into his home studio, spacious though it is. Instead he has become, you might say, a camp follower on the trail of a late-20th-century phenomenon: large-scale re-enactments of bloody Civil War battles.

Last month near Antietam Creek in Maryland, some 25,000 re-enactors donned authentic military uniforms from both the Union and Confederate sides to observe the 135th anniversary of the bloodiest day of fighting in United States history, in which 23,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. And there, camera in hand, was 60-year-old Prechtel, recording the "battle" in hundreds of color slides for future reference. While he's fascinated with authenticity, which his style of painting demands, Prechtel isn't personally swept up in the re-enactment fever.

During the mock Antietam battle, he tried dressing up in period costume, stuffing his cameras into a haversack, so he could take pictures from out among the soldiers. "I put that stuff on, took one look at myself and thought, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life," the artist says. So he went back to civvies and to photographing from the sidelines.

Re-enactments don't provide the only source of Western imagery for artists like Prechtel. Earlier last summer, he was one of three dozen artists and photographers who ponied up $350 each to attend an event called "The Artist's Ride," held on a ranch in South Dakota with dozens of cowboys and Indians on horseback. Prechtel took 100 rolls of film with him. "We set up all these scenarios and played director," he says. "They'd do just about anything you told them to. It was great."

Born in Los Angeles, Prechtel has lived in Oregon since 1942. Though he began his career as an optician in Eugene, Prechtel had been drawing and painting since he was a child, always favoring the realistic, illustrative style of N.C. Wyeth. "I like to paint story-telling paintings," he says. "I used to just paint landscapes. But you've got to get something in there that grabs you. And I think people want to know about their history." When he began selling his own paintings in places like the then-posh Eugene Hotel, Prechtel was convinced he was destined to be an artist. All he needed, at that point, was a regular income. Almost miraculously, he found one through the generosity of a private benefactor. Eugene lawyer John Jaqua, who had bought one of Prechtel's early paintings, offered the young artist a paycheck every month for three years while he was getting himself established.

The debt has never been forgotten. "I called him back recently," Prechtel says of his long-ago patron. "I said, 'John, I can pay that money back now.' He said he didn't want the money. 'I want you to go out and do the same thing for someone else,' he said." So Prechtel is paying off his debt by teaching free drawing and painting classes to children in Creswell.

Prechtel works every day in a large, modern studio that's decorated with Civil War and other military and western memorabilia, from buffalo heads to uniforms. Recent work has included "Brave Rifles," commissioned by the U.S. Army's Third Armored Cavalry to mark the unit's 150th anniversary, and "For Erin and Glory," a dramatic scene showing the 69th Irish Brigade in action at Gettysburg. Prechtel also has several new paintings, including two Civil War scenes, on view this month at the Alder Gallery in downtown Eugene, which will be open tonight as part of the First Friday Art Walk.

Oct. 3, 1997