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Nicholas Firfires Lot including personal artifacts

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:700.00 USD Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,500.00 USD
Nicholas Firfires Lot including personal artifacts
a) Early Buermann style iron spurs with large 8 pt rowels and inscription that reads Made for Nick Firfires by Don Drew; b) 3X beaver quality Stetson Hat with the initials NSF stamped into the leather liner with photo of Nick wearing same. In original Stetson box; c) High quality 7 3/8” Stetson with initials NSF stamped into the leather liner. Black, beige and orange braided horsehair hatband. In original Stetson box; d) Nick’s personal leather batwing chaps with six slotted nickel conchos and latigo strings. Stamped billet. Includes photo of Nick wearing same; e) Nick’s floral carved binocular case with his brand on the lid; f) Pair of signed Nick Firfires sketches
Lot comes with Letter of Authenticity signed by Buck Beery

Nicholas Firfires (1917-1990)
Nicholas S Firfires was born in Santa Barbara and grew up on ranches in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County. A descendant of California vaqueros, Nick learned all the skills of working cowboys: breaking horses, herding cattle, and working cow ponies before he graduated from Santa Maria High School. Mr. Firfires’ other passion was drawing animals, cowboys, Native Americans, vaqueros and Western scenery. Later he wrote, I soon realized that painting a bronc stomper breaking a horse was more important to me than doing the job myself. He attended the Art Center School and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. After the war, he opened a studio in Santa Barbara and illustrated for Western magazines while working on easel paintings. His illustrations included Buck Jones, a popular comic strip and Gene Autry. He had his first one-man show in 1960, and was so successful that he turned exclusively to fine art painting, depicting both historic and contemporary Western scenes. Firfires was married to daughter of cowboy actor Buck Jones. In 1969 he won the Silver Medal Award for watercolor in the Fourth Annual Exhibit of the Cowboy Artists of America at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. He was a founding member of the CAA. Firfires was also a member of the Rancheros Visitadores riding group that also included Ed Borein and Joe DeYong -- both well-known Vaquero artists of the past.