Edgar Payne was born in Washburn, Missouri in 1882. A landscape painter and muralist, Payne was a member of the Alumni Association of the Art Institute of Chicago and became a member of the Chicago Society of Artists. In 1911 a sketching trip West took him to Laguna Beach, California where he settled in 1917. He spent so much time sketching and painting in the Sierras that a lake was named after him there.

In the 1920’s Payne traveled extensively throughout Europe where he won an honorable mention in the 1923 Paris Salon. After his return to California, he wrote a successful book on landscape painting and made a movie about the Sierras. He traveled all over the country on painting expeditions, but Los Angeles remained his home where he died at the age of sixty-four.

His works are held by the Nebraska Art Association, the Chicago Municipal Art Commission, the Anschutz Collection, the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis and the National Academy of Design to name a few. Famous as a muralist, his murals can still be found today in theaters and public buildings throughout the nation.

Born in Hudson, New York Phillips displayed his artistic talents early, winning art prizes as a child. He trained formally at the New York City Art Students League and the National Academy of Design, maintaining a studio in the city as well. In 1894, he moved to England to work on his watercolor landscapes. The next year he studied in Paris at the Julien Academy. There he met Ernest Blumenschein and Joseph Sharp.

In 1897, he was back in New York City sharing an apartment with his new friend, E. L. Blumenschein. The following year the two artists made a sketching trip to Colorado and through a series of events they landed in Taos, New Mexico. Phillips decided to stay in Taos having fallen in love with the land. He became the first permanent resident artist and the key founder of the Taos Society of Art formally founded in 1912.

His works are in the Anshutz Collection, Museum of New Mexico, and the Gilcrease Institute.

Alexander Phimister Proctor was born in Ontario Canada in 1862 to second generation pioneers. In the spring of 1871 the family moved to Denver, Colorado with the hope of prosperity. Exploring the Colorado Rockies with his father, Proctor developed a permanent interest in wildlife. Through studying and sketching specimens he developed a deep visual understanding of their artistic merits.

Proctor moved to New York in 1885 where he enrolled at the National Academy of Design and the Art Student’s League. In 1887 he met the sculptor John Rodgers and under his tutelage took up the modeling of wild animals seriously. After several years of winter studies in New York and summer adventures in the mountains of Washington and Colorado, Proctor’s plans were to return to New York. On his return he was intercepted by a telegram from Chicago inviting him there for what was to be his greatest opportunity.

In 1891 he arrived in Chicago to begin his newly commissioned work for the World’s Colombian Exposition that was to open in 1893. He sculpted thirty-five life-size animals depicting those he hunted and studied in his mountain adventures. He also created two enormous equestrian sculptures. The work brought Proctor into the international spotlight and financial stability. Seeking a more formal education he moved to Paris for a year and studied at the Julien Academy under the tutelage of Denys Puech. There his work won the admiration of Parisian art critics and Augustas Saint-Gauden. Returning to the states, he began work on sculptures of General Logan and General Sherman for Saint-Gauden. In 1896 Proctor received the Rinehart Scholarship and was back in Paris for three years of study. His bronzes Stalking Panther and The Indian Warrior were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of Nineteen hundred and won him the Gold Medal. Proctor had as many commissions as he could handle. He often was overlapping them to satisfy his demand. Over the course of his life he created a prodigious amount of art. His enthusiasm and love of life is seen in all his sculptures that can be found across the states and around the world.

Frederic Sackrider Remington was born on October 1, 1861, in Canton, New York. From a very young age, Remington showed artistic inclinations. His school notebooks were full of sketches, often depicting Old West characters and equestrian figures. Remington’s fondness for horses also materialized at an early age. As a boy, he was an accomplished rider, a skill imparted by his father who had been a cavalry officer during the Civil War.

In 1872, the Remington family moved to Ogdensburg, New York, where young Remington was enrolled in a military academy at the age of fifteen. His fervent desire to become an artist convinced his parents to let him take art classes at Yale University in 1878. After an initial period of enthusiasm, Remington soon became discouraged with the tedious routine of academic art instruction and turned his interest to athletics, becoming the Yale boxing champion and a member of the football team.

Upon the death of his father in 1880, Remington quit Yale and decided to try to make his living as an artist. He spent five years traveling in the West, during which he decided to commit himself to the artistic representation of the history, people and traditions of the “Old West.” Remington befriended anyone who could afford him additional insight into his obsession. He talked to cowboys, saloonkeepers, Indians, soldiers and settlers. He became a close friend of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and was often invited to stay at his famous ranch.

Remington moved to New York City and began working as a freelance illustrator and studying at the Art Student’s League. His first accomplishment as a professional artist came in 1882, when one of his sketches was published in the February 25 issue of Harper’s Weekly. He began to get regular commissions and by 1887 was supporting himself well. That year, he produced several important easel works. He exhibited a painting at the American Water Color Society Show and another at the National Academy of Design Exhibition. The following year, in 1888, he won two prestigious awards at the National Academy: The Hallgarten Prize and the Clark Prize. Remington had finally achieved full success in his field and he was deluged with commissions. By 1890, his stature and wealth allowed him to buy a mansion in New Rochelle, where he built a large studio and stocked it with his collection of western artifacts. His fame and wealth continued until his death at the age of 48.

Charles Marion Russell was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 19, 1864. He was the son of a prominent family that had holdings in coal mines and brick manufacturing. Although Russell was raised with the intention of running the family business, he instead developed colorful ambitions toward becoming a cowboy. As a boy, he was a proficient rider and he adopted the ways and manners of his western heroes. His other great ambition was to paint. He was constantly sketching in his schoolbooks and his principal subjects were cowboys and Indians.

In 1880, Russell set out for Montana. He arrived in Helena and took a job as a sheep herder. After a short time, he befriended Jake Hoover, a trapper and hunter, and spent two years with Hoover in the Judith Basin. All the time he continued his painting, spending long hours sketching the wild animals he observed in his daily life. Two years after moving to Montana he hired out as a cowboy, to keep watch on horses, and later as a “night hawk” to watch the cattle at night. Russell was constantly sketching during his off hours and was slowly developing a local reputation as an artist. In 1888, Russell had his first national exposure when one of his sketches appeared in Harper’s Weekly, his first paid illustration.

Russell’s years as a cowboy were to be very important in his art. His firsthand experiences and his intimate knowledge of the cowboy’s tools and ways were to produce the distinctive realism that is characteristic of his style. He portrayed actual events and people in his paintings. Many legends and stories of the West that he often used in his works were originally heard by Russell in evening discussions and camp talk during his years as a cowboy. Russell was also a fervent admirer of the American Indian and often portrayed them as heroic figures struggling to preserve their way of life. In the winter of 1888-89, Russell lived with the primitive Blood Indians in Canada.

By 1892, Russell was a full-time painter. His works were popular in Montana and he was occasionally publishing an illustration for a book or story in a magazine. He was, by nature, a friendly and convivial person. Having no concept of earning his living as a painter, Russell would usually give his sketches and paintings to friends and, at times, would paint a commission for the local saloon in exchange for his bar debts. Although he was becoming famous, he was realizing very little financial gain. On September 9, 1896, he married Nancy Cooper and moved to Great Falls. Nancy immediately became Russell’s business manager. She slowly and carefully built up Russell’s reputation and stopped his practice of giving away his art. Russell began to sell his paintings at good prices and together, he and Nancy began to enjoy the rewards of fame.

In 1898, Russell cast his first bronzes at the Roman Bronze Works foundry in New York. They were small items but sold well. In 1899, he published Pen Sketches, a collection of prints of cowboy life. These were quickly successful and reprinted in several editions.
By 1903, Russell had a national reputation. He built a log-cabin studio in Great Falls that he stocked with a large collection of artifacts and memorabilia of his cowboy days. In the winter of 1903, he and Nancy went to New York top promote his first eastern art exhibition. On the way, they stopped in St. Louis, where Russell had several paintings in the Louisiana Purchase International Exposition. The New York trip was a failure as they did not sell any paintings. The next year, Nancy persuaded Russell to try again and they returned to New York. They sold several paintings and were able to get Russell’s small bronzes established at Tiffany. In addition, Russell became swamped with orders for illustrations.

In 1909, Russell exhibited at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, and in 1911, Russell had his first important one-man show in New York, at the Folsom Gallery. That same year, he was commissioned by the State of Montana to do a mural for the Montana House of Representatives, Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians. In 1914, he had a successful show at the Dore Galleries in London. By 1915, he was a complete success, getting large prices for his paintings and selling all that he could produce. Success, however, did not change Russell’s character or charm. He was still the friendly cowboy and he could not understand why people paid so much money for his work.

In 1920, Russell’s health began to weaken. He and Nancy would spend winters in California to avoid the rigors of the Montana climate. After several years of poor health, Charles M. Russell died of a heart attack on October 24, 1926, at the age of 62.

Frank Paul Sauerwein was born in 1871 and raised in Philadelphia, the pupil of his father, Charles D. Sauerwein, a portraitist and genre painter who studied in Europe. Frank Sauerwein first studied at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art, then at the Pennsylvania Academy, and finally at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sauerwein moved to Denver about 1891 because of ill health. In 1893 he began to sketch Indians in the Rockies. Within two years his subjects were mostly western landscapes and Indian life. He was in Colorado Springs in 1893, traveling with Charles Craig to the Ute Reservation. After a trip to France and Spain, he returned West, visiting Taos in 1899, Santa Cruz and Santa Fe in 1900, and Taos in 1902 and 1903. Next he resided in California for a brief time. Then in 1906 he moved to Taos where he purchased a house and lived for two years. Stricken by tuberculosis and too ill to paint, he went to Connecticut to find a cure.

Sauerwein was an important painter in the West during his time. He painted both oils and watercolors and favored naturalistic, tightly drawn landscapes, which are at the same time atmospheric and even lyric. He was known as a competent, straightforward naturalistic recorder of the landscape and Indian life. Frank Sauerwein died a young man in his late thirties in 1910 in Stamford, Connecticut.

Edward Borein was born in San Leandro, California. At the age of 17, he left school to work with a saddlemaker. He then worked for several years as a cowboy, constantly sketching and occasionally sending his drawings to magazines for illustration. He spent a month in 1891 at the San Francisco Art Association, where he met Maynard Dixon, who would gain notice as an important painter of the desert country. Leaving art school, Borein hired on as a cowboy at the Jesus Maria Rancho in Santa Barbara and then at a ranch in Malibu. The owner, who admired the young man’s sketches, staked him to an extended sketching tour of Mexico. When he returned, Borein joined the San Francisco Call as a staff artist, earning eight dollars a week – even less than cowboy pay.

With Dixon, Borein toured the Sierras, Carson City and parts of Oregon and Idaho in 1901, returning to Mexico two years later. It was during this trip that he began making watercolors. In 1904, he settled in Oakland where he painted and produced some sculpture. After many years of marginal work, he became a very successful illustrator for the great magazines of the day: Harper’s, Collier’s, Sunset, Century, and Western World. He became one of the most popular artists in America, gaining national fame and associating with the likes of Russell, James Swinnerton, Maynard Dixon, Will James, Olaf Seltzer, Carl Oscar Borg, and such western celebrities as Will Rogers and Leo Carillo.

In 1891, Borein started etching. He produced a large number of etchings that were very popular and sold well. At the suggestion of Russell, Borein went to Canada in 1912, where he worked for two years.

In 1921, Borein married and settled in Santa Barbara where he lived for the rest of his life. He continued his etching and illustrating. He was called the “cowpuncher artist” and throughout his life he lived the part, always wearing the colorful outfit of the cowboy. He died in Santa Barbara on May 19, 1945, at the age of 72.

Born and raised in Sweden, Borg emigrated to the United States in 1902 and settled in California. Employed as a scene painter for the movie industry, he had his first exhibition in 1905 and was immediately recognized for his talent. Fellow artists introduced him to the West as a subject and he began traveling and sketching throughout California and the Southwest. His reputation earned him the interest of William Randolph Hearst’s mother who sponsored him for five years of study in Europe where he received awards in France in 1913 and 1914.

Upon his return to the United States, Borg won the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. He lived in Santa Barbara from 1914 to 1930 and became a very good friend of Edward Borein’s. The two traveled throughout the West painting Indian ceremonials and cowboy genre subjects, teaching art classes as they went. Borg also painted in Central and South America, Spain, Morocco, the Valley of the Nile, and Italy.

In 1936 Borg, Millard Sheets, and Dr. Eugene Bolton of the University of California wrote and illustrated a book on the history of California titled Cross, Sword, and Gold Pan. Borg also published a book of etchings titled The Great South West that same year. His own biography was published in Sweden.

His works are held by the University of California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hearst Free Library, Montclair Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, the Library of Congress, Goteborg Museum in Sweden and the Bibliotheque in Paris.

Born in Tompkinsville, New York, Belmore Browne studied at the New York School of Art and the Academie Julian in Paris. As famous in the annals of mountaineering as he is as an artist, his best-known and most widely collected paintings are of Alaska, Washington, California, and the Canadian Rockies. His paintings of animals and landscapes combine the attention to naturalistic detail of a naturalist and mountaineer with a bold, expressive painterly touch.

Browne first traveled to Alaska in 1888 as an eight-year-old child on a sightseeing trip with his family. Between 1902 and 1912 he made several return visits as a member of mammal-collecting expeditions for the American Museum of Natural History, and participated in three pioneering attempts to climb then-unscaled Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak. At the close of this period, Browne continued to write and to pursue mountaineering, but settled chiefly on his work as an artist.

After serving in World War I, the artist, with his wife Agnes, moved to Banff, Alberta, where they lived year-round at first, later wintering in California. For several years beginning in 1930, he was director of the Santa Barbara School of Fine Arts. During that time, he began producing background paintings for museum displays of mammal habitats. He produced notable examples for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Boston Museum of Science, and the American Museum of Natural History.

In addition to the extensive collection of Browne’s paintings at the Glenbow-Alberta Institute in Calgary, his works are widely represented in major American museums, among them the National Museum of American Art, Shelburne (Vermont) Museum, National Museum of Wildlife Art, and Amherst College Museum.

Ira Diamond Gerald Cassidy was born in Covington, Kentucky. The son of a builder, he grew up in Cincinnati. At the age of twelve he became a pupil of Duveneck at the Institute of Mechanical Arts. By the time he was twenty, Cassidy was already the art director for a lithographer in New York City.

Stricken by pneumonia in 1899, he entered a sanitarium in Albuquerque where he first painted the Southwest and changed his signature from Ira Diamond Cassidy to Gerald Cassidy. When he recovered sufficiently, he moved to Denver as a commercial artist and lithographer specializing in theatrical subjects. After returning briefly to New York City, where he studied at the National Academy of Design and the famed Art Students League, he married and settled in Santa Fe in 1912. He also painted actively in Los Angeles, California from 1913 to 1921.

Intending to devote his talent to recording Indian life in the light and color of New Mexico, his first Indian drawings reproduced on post cards were sophisticated and art nouveau rather than the typical Victorian style of the day. Recognition came by 1915 with his mural The Cliff Dwellers of the Southwest. In the 1920’s his small plein aire landscapes were most highly sought after and his style continued to resist the influence of the New Mexico modernists.

He traveled abroad in 1926, visiting Europe and North Africa. While in France, he utilized his 1925 sketches of Navajo subjects to execute two major oil paintings; one commissioned by the Santa Fe Railway and the other for the French government.

Gerald Cassidy died in Santa Fe while working on a mural for the Santa Fe Federal Building. The partially completed work remains there to this day.