William R. Leigh (1866 – 1955) – Embarrassed (Range Pony in Town) (ca. 1910)

William R. Leigh (1866 – 1955) – Embarrassed (Range Pony in Town) (ca. 1910):

William R. Leigh (1866 – 1955)
Embarrassed (Range Pony in Town) (ca. 1910)
oil on canvas
30 × 40 inches
signed lower right

VERSO
Inscribed, “Scene from Cody, Wyoming” (prior to lining)
Label, Biltmore Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona
Label, Christie’s, New York, New York

In her biography of William R. Leigh, June DuBois wrote, “In his autobiography and other writing Leigh has given his reasons for his consuming desire to paint Western subjects: his love of animals, his fondness of nature and the unpretentious, a childhood infused with Indian folklore, and above all, his certainty that the West represented the intrinsically authentic America. Out here he felt he would throw off the gloomy shroud of the New York art world and come alive again, free to paint subjects which hold meaning for Americans in any style he chose.

“In the meantime his painting of Wyoming and the Southwest had come to the attention of many. In an article, Thomas Moran was quoted as saying, ‘W. R. Leigh has preferred the sleeping bag, frying pan, and the stars to the contrivances of the railroad people.… For eight years, good pictures by this artist have been coming out of the West. At first they were mainly canyons and mountains, western skies and sagebrush, moonlit buttes and sunsets. Later they came to include characteristic pictures of Indian and cowboy life.’”

In his unpublished memoirs Leigh wrote, “With his payoff money in his pocket, the cow-puncher does not keep his head very long. Usually drunken men, when thrown, aren’t hurt – they merely afford amusement to the onlookers.”

PROVENANCE
Babcock Galleries, New York, New York
Estate of Nathaniel Hamlen, Boston, Massachusetts
Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, New York, 1941
Private collection, New Jersey
Robert S. Folsom, Dallas, Texas
Biltmore Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona
Private collection, 1991
Christie’s, New York, New York, 2010
Private collection, Wyoming

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Condition
Surface is in excellent condition. Canvas is lined. Specks of inpainting on central rider and background figures.