Visions of the Prairie
Red Cloud Opera House
413 North Webster Street
Red Cloud, NE 68970
United States
Scott Kirby has made his living as a musician for his entire professional life. He has no formal training or professional background in visual art. Referred to as an “accidental artist” by Sandpoint Magazine, Kirby's artistic practice began at age forty. While drawing with his daughters, Kirby found sudden inspiration in his mental images of the towns and landscapes of the American grasslands. After nine months of drawing with dual-tip brush pens, Kirby moved into watercolors, which remains his primary medium.
Though some of Kirby's paintings are inspired by actual locales, most are imagined scenes or composites of familiar images, objects, skies, structures and enormous open spaces found in the High Plains. In 2021 Kirby was inspired to try cityscapes, mainly Paris, a project which is expanding to other urban locales. The last few years Kirby has combined his art and music in a multi-media program called "Main Street Souvenirs," which he'll perform in the Red Cloud Opera House on April 3, 2026.
Programming at the National Willa Cather Center's Red Cloud Opera House is made possible with the support of the Baldwin Foundation, Nebraska Arts Council, and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
About the Artist
A native of Ohio, Scott Kirby began his study of music at age six and continued formal piano instruction for seventeen years. He worked under Robert Howat of Wittenberg University of Ohio, and Sylvia Zaremba at the Ohio State University. After obtaining an English degree from Ohio State University, Kirby moved to New Orleans and began his professional music career, working as a street performer. In the next four years, he recorded the complete rags of Scott Joplin and made his debut at all of the major ragtime festivals in the United States, as well as festivals in Belgium, France, Norway, New Zealand, and Hungary.
In 2004, Kirby’s artistic passion grew to include visual art, mostly focused on the American Great Plains and Prairies. These, together with new musical compositions, set the groundwork for his multi-media project “Main Street Souvenirs.” Kirby now lives in Boulder, Colorado, and divides his time between composing, painting, performing and teaching.