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Gollings, William (1878 - 1932)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:30,000.00 USD Estimated At:30,000.00 - 40,000.00 USD
Gollings, William (1878 - 1932)
<strong>Gollings, William </strong>
(1878 - 1932)

<strong>On the Drive, 1904</strong>

oil on canvas
10 3/8 x 24 3/8 inches
signed and dated lower right: <i>Gollings 04 with artist's cipher</i>

Born on a ranch in Idaho, Bill Gollings left home when he was eighteen to wander and ride the
rails through the cow towns of Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota, hoping to follow in the
footsteps of his idol, Frederic Remington. He succeeded, leaving an important visual record of the
end of an era, chronicling the exciting days when cowboys rode the range, driving and roping
cattle, drinking in saloons, and relishing the freedom of the "Wild West." For many years, Gollings
experienced the cowboy's life firsthand while working on ranches, where, among other things, he
herded sheep and broke horses. <i>On the Drive</i> is an early example of his work, painted not long after he ordered his first official oil painting supplies from the mail-order catalogue of Montgomery Ward.

Bill's brother De Witt had taken some of his first paintings to W.E. Freeman, the owner of a furniture store in Sheridan, Wyoming, who was favorably impressed by the young artist. In 1904, the same year that he painted this picture, Gollings received an encouraging letter from Freeman, stating that he had sold one of his paintings and would like to have more, along with a check for fifty dollars. Nevertheless, it would be several more years before the artist "built a shack and called it a studio," settling down in 1909 to focus on his art.

In <i>On the Drive,</i> we see ten mounted cowboys riding toward us, the horizon line our only gauge with which to find our bearings in these expansive surroundings, the light-infused
plains capped by a clear, blue sky. Note the artist's use of impressionistic, quick brushstrokes
to delineate the scruffy vegetation in the foreground, giving a sense of scale to the composition. The figure second from the left looks backward to point at something in the distance, while the figure second from the right cups his hands over his mouth, as if preparing to whistle to the herd. It would not be long before the cattle drives ceased and the cowboys vanished; fortunately, Bill Gollings captured this once-common workday routine before it was too late.—DW






Provenance:
Private Collection, New Mexico

Literature:
Ed Ainsworth, <i>The Cowboy in Art,</i> New York, New York and Cleveland, Ohio: World
Publishing Company, 1968
Doris Ostrander Dawdy, <i>Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary,</i>
3 vols. Chicago, Illinois: Swallow Press, Inc., 1974
Peggy and Harold Samuels, <i>The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West,</i> Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976