Cowboy art corrals collectors: with an upsurge in the popularity of Western art, dealers of cowboy paintings, sculptures and collectibles are roping in revenues

Art Business News, Feb, 2003 by Laura Meyers

In Western works past and present, said Duty, there is another common thread. "There's no time, from the 1830s to the present, when there isn't a profound sense of loss. What we imagined we never really could hold on to." Even the grand Western wilderness landscapes of Albert Bierstadt, painting in the 1860s and '70s, and Thomas Moran, painting in the latter decade, are accompanied by a sense of sorrow that the beauty of these landscapes was quickly falling to the axe of new settlements.

The longing for a lost way of life is even more pronounced in the paintings of cowboys, according to Western art dealers like Rey. "A part of what is attractive for people in these works is their love for a tradition which is disappearing or has disappeared," he said. "Even Charles Russell, painting a century ago, said the Old West is gone."

Some of today's cowboy artists, such as Gordon Snidow, paint to preserve what is left of that life. "There are few ranches where preservation of our western heritage is important," Snidow observed in the book Gordon Snidow: My Story by Peter Hassrick. "Where they still take the wagon out. Where cowboying is still done in the traditional way by `dragging calves to the fire.' Where an effort is made to keep the Star Mill working, not because it is the best or the easiest way to draw water but because it is a part of history. Too soon, the sun will set on the last Star Mill, and not long after that, the last cowboy."

Snidow devotes his artistic focus to documenting contemporary ranch hands, typically depicted as ordinary, unglamorous men (and women--Snidow was among the first Western artists to celebrate the liberated modern cowgirl) rather than heroes.

The Old West Fades, A New West Arrives

"More and more lately, people are buying [works portraying] today's working cowboys with today's slickers and tack," said Theios. "These works don't have the same romanticized view of the West."

For, instance, Nelson Boren has portrayed cowboys sleeping in wheelbarrows and other unromantic poses. Too, Boren has broken with the narrative tradition in Western art. He crops a scene, painting a part of a boot, or an extreme close-up of a cowboy hands working on his gear. In the watercolor "What A Kiss!!" Boren paints a cowboy's boots, spurs and chaps from the knee down, lined up next to his gal's boots. "In my paintings, I want to portray a glimpse rather than the whole story ... I especially enjoy capturing the weathered look of old leather and rusty spurs," said Boren. "I see American history in these elements of cowboy life."

Artist DeVary would disagree with Theios' view that today's works are less romanticized. "Being of the age where cowboys are my heros. I still think about the romance of the freedom a cowboy represents, being able to ride forever under big skies." And yet, his cowboys often do wear yellow slickers and ride motorcycles; his cowgirls are assertive and even a bit provocative.

"I do have a different take on the whole Western painting thing," DeVary, a Chicago transplant to New Mexico, admitted. "My work isn't classical, but rather a very contemporary look at the West. One of the things I don't concentrate on is the working cowboy. It's not where my imagination really lies. Even at the rodeo, I would paint the guys before or after, but not on the bulls."