The Sheriff Rides

Additional Information

Caption: “Bob McGraw laughed and drew his gun. ‘I’d ride to hell for you,’ he muttered joyously, and sank the rowels home in Friar Tuck.”
Bob McGraw, the “Leading Man” in author Peter Kyne’s “The Long Chance,” a Western novel serialized in Sunset Magazine, is the subject of Maynard Dixon’s brawny and moody action painting. Here’s how Kyne describes him: “He was tall enough but his hair was not crisp and curly and golden. Most people would have called it red. Not, praise be, a carroty red, a dull negative, scrubby red, but a nicer red than that–dark auburn, in fact… In but one particular did he resemble the dream man. He did have a cleft in his chin… The only thing romantic and–er–literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed mustang, Friar Tuck–so called because he had been foaled and raised on a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino County.” Bob McGraw’s lady love is Donna Corblay. His rival for her affections is the wealthy Gerald Van Alstyne. At the moment of the painting, McGraw has spotted Donna riding her velocipede (that’s bicycle to you) out of town. And, of course, she has just been accosted by three men. And, of course, Bob, true natural knight of the range that he is, rides to her rescue. Dixon wisely sculpts the hero and his steed out of flowing mooncast shadows, thereby allowing the viewer to create and project a persona onto Kyne’s classic protagonist.

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Please note that the first unframed photo is most accurate for color. Framed photographs are to show the frame and are not color corrected to the painting.

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