“An Arizona Cowboy”
“An Arizona Cowboy” is a pastel and pencil on paper drawing by the American artist, Frederic Remington, from 1901. Remington is most remembered for his art depicting the American Old West, featuring cowboys, indigenous Americans, and soldiers. He was an artist who worked in a variety of mediums, finding success as a painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer.
Remington made this piece, and seven others for an art book of his work, titled A Bunch of Buckskins. This book included eight pastel portraits of archetypal Old West characters, cowboys and indigenous Americans, all astride horses. Remington’s book was published in 1901 by Robert Howard Russell in New York.
In this piece, Remington draws a portrait of a cowboy in complete dress, with his spurs, gun, holster, bandanna, hat, and chaps, on a horse. It is an archetypal character from the American west. In 1895, he made a sculpture of the same name.
With pieces of art like this, Remington helped reshape the way that the world saw American cowboys. Once seen as rough characters, cowboys became fearless heroes with grit. Although highly romanticized, this image still resonates with people today.
“An Arizona Cowboy” is currently in the collections of the Rockwell Museum in Corning, New York, in the United States.
For more on Frederic Remington, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
