Cowboy at Work

Additional Information

Provenance:
John Moran Auctioneers, Monrovia, CA, 2001
Private collection, Minnesota

Cowboy at Work shows a rider clinging to the neck of a steer as his horse gallops next to him. Steer wrestling, or bulldogging, was an interest of Marjorie Reed, who painted it several times in her long career. The California-based artist was primarily known for her thrilling paintings of stagecoaches, and yet she also painted working cowboys frequently. Reed worked on a ranch at least once, as did her husband, cowboy and occasional outlaw Harvey Day, whose name Reed sometimes signed on her paintings to pass as a male painter. This piece was completed in 1938, not long after Reed became friends with artist Jack Wilkinson Smith.