2024 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 201201 / 405 • View Catalog •
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VERSO
Label, Texas Art Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Big Game Hunter will be included in Michael R. Grauer’s forthcoming W. Herbert Dunton Catalogue Raisonné.
As described by art historian Michael R. Grauer, “Unlike his Taos brethren, and his peers outside Taos, Dunton was an outdoorsman in the purest sense of the word. He was also one of the few American artists who was a participant in the West, rather than an observer or spectator of it, having worked periodically as a cowboy and hunter from his first trip to the West in 1896 and his first trip to Taos in 1912.… Unlike other artists who traveled to the West at this time seeking new subjects for their brushes, Dunton went west hoping to become a cowboy and hunter, but turned to rendering the West only after cowboying and hunting proved to be non-lucrative. The majority of the artists and illustrators who went west to glean material for their canvases only played at being cowboys for relatively short periods of time.
“Dunton was one of few artists who could lend authenticity to Western illustrations because he had been a part of it, albeit as it was passing away. Like many of his fellows, he was a great collector of Western garb and weapons. Yet, Dunton’s authenticity transcends mere gear and trappings into the arena of believable Western figures, characters, and situations.”
PROVENANCE
Red McCombs Collection, San Antonio, Texas