Edward Borein: Etched by the West

B. Byron Price

Edward Borein’s life as a cowboy and artist began just as the American frontier was disappearing. Remnants of the Old West could still be found by the time he came on the scene, but were the exception rather than the rule; most of the open ranges were no longer open, the vast herds of buffaloes had disappeared, and the Indians had been forced to settle on reservations. One of the last artists to capture the Old West from personal observation, Borein’s years as a vaquero in California and Mexico gave him a unique understanding of the region’s way of life.

Borein’s accurate portrayals of the West document in stunning detail the people, animals and surroundings of the West, from the Canadian Rockies to the Mexican deserts. Horses and cattle, saddles and bridles, clothing and weapons were all appropriate to the time and place he depicted. This was true whether his subject was an American cowboy, Mexican vaquero or soldado, Plains Indian or Southwestern pueblo dweller.

In this book Byron Price, one of the foremost scholars of the art of the American West, traces Borein’s extraordinary career from a self-taught recorder of the life of an itinerant ranch hand to a highly successful commercial artist in New York to his many years in Santa Barbara as a revered member of the city’s artist community. Richly illustrated with more than four hundred images, drawings, watercolors and oil paintings as well as etchings, this beautiful volume is a significant scholarly biography in coffee table book format.

Hard Cover