Two Cowboy Art Exhibitions at Tacoma Art Museum
Published in the Weekly Volcano, Jan. 7, 2016
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| “Kay Gee Doc,” tempera on board by William Cumming, gift of J.P. Morgan Chase, courtesy Tacoma Art Museum |
I have never
been a huge fan of cowboy art, so I was surprised to find I actually enjoyed Creative Cowboys and its companion show,
Saddles, Spurs
and Quirts as much as I did.
Creative Cowboys celebrates cowboy culture in the Pacific Northwest from art about
cowboy festivals and rodeos from Pendleton, Ore.
and Spokane, Wash. to paintings by local favorite cowboy artists such as Fred
Oldfield, founder of the Fred Oldfield Western Heritage and Art Center in
Puyallup. The companion show, Saddles, Spurs and Quirts: the Art of
Leatherworking, is an exhibition of intricate leatherwork cowboy boots,
saddles, spurs and related crafts. .
As with Western
art in other areas, notably the cattle country of Wyoming and Montana, and the
“wild west” of Texas, the Southwest and the
plains states, cowboy art of our region tends to romanticize and mythologize
cowboys.
Among the more
famous artists represented in the show is John Clymer, an illustrator whose
Saturday Evening Post covers were eclipsed in popularity only by those by
Norman Rockwell. Born and raised in Ellensburg, he went to the East Coast to
study art, but his favorite subjects were cowboy families, most notably teenage
boys who grew up on horseback in his native Northwest. Clymer painted as many
as 80 Post covers. He depicted a cowboy version of Rockwell’s All-American life
with the same kind of quirky humor his more celebrated contemporary was famous
for. Take, for example, “Boy on Horse,” a Post cover illustration from 1949
depicting a boy standing up in his saddle to peer into a hole in a tall tree
trunk. What is her looking for? A bee hive? Stealing some honey, perhaps? Or
maybe retrieving a hidden treasure previously secreted away in the stump.
Clymer’s
illustrations and others in the show are displayed with the original paintings
alongside the magazine covers. Viewers may find
comparing the paintings with the print versions interesting.
William Cumming
presents a more contemporary view of cowboy life with his pop art depictions of
rodeos. Painted in colorful and flat planes, he
creates exciting images of the extreme action of bull riding and steer roping.
His “Kay Gee Doc” pictures a rodeo cowboy roping a steer. Behind the action can
be seen letters from advertisements on the wall. Everything is out of focus, blurred
by dust with wonderfully toned-down yet bright colors and brushwork that
reminds me of Susan Rothenburg, who made her mark with expressive paintings of
horses —particularly the horse’s back legs that are obscured by a cloud of
dust.
Oldfield’s “Cow
Camp at McCormick Meadows” is an idyllic scene of cowboys camping on the banks
of a tiny stream in a field of golden yellow, a cowboy cooking on a campfire in
front of a white tent while their horses peacefully graze. This is an excellent
little painting that, nevertheless, creates a falsely serene picture of life on
the cow trails.
The saddles, spurs and quirts
end the show with a display in a glass case at the back door of the gallery.
The intricacy of the designs showcase the loving care of the craftspeople who
made these beautiful objects made for utilitarian work.
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