« I like to think of my mission as an artist as one of discoverer and not as inventor. If I can find a way of presenting a subject especially a familiar one with a new kind of intrigue I feel if I have succeeded. »

Born and raised in Montana Kraig studied painting and drawing at MSUB and later at the Art Students League in New York where he concentrated on the discipline of drawing especially from the figure. Coming back to Montana’s spacious landscapes  he started the practice of painting outdoors from nature on a consistent basis. He continued to paint from the landscape after a move to the Bay Area in California where he and his wife Cindy would make their home for the next seventeen years.  In addition to a benevolent climate favorable for working outside year round and the stunning  beauty of the Pacific Coast he discovered a rich tradition of  West Coast landscape painting  including the  California Impressionist and Tonalist movements  of the early twentieth century to the modernist Society of Six  and the Bay Area School of Diebenkorn and associates. 

In 2000 a corporate move led them to the San Antonio area and since then Kraig has embraced the landscape subjects of South Texas,  New Mexico and the Southwest in his more current work .

In addition to his own work Kraig has enjoyed leading classes and workshops on a number of topics including life drawing, oil painting, pastels, sketching from nature, landscape painting and methods and materials in art.

Kraig s work has been shown widely across the United States and his work appears in many collections both public and private and has been recognized with several awards and honors.  

Kraig participated in the Maynard Dixon Country Show at the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts in Southern Utah for 14 years and is a founding member.  He shows his work regularly at The Hunt Gallery in San Antonio, Texas where he had his fourth solo show in 2023 and plans are underway for a fifth.