Authentic Spirit

Western Art Collector | August 2024

By Chadd Scott

The words and images of Will James serve as the inspiration for a new show at Claggett/Rey Gallery.

Will James’ life as a cowboy across the West read like a novel, so, at the encouragement of his wife, he wrote it all down. What started as magazine stories evolved into 24 books between 1924 and 1942. All feature his illustrations. James (1892-1942) was the archetypal cowboy artist.

He did 18 months on a cattle rustling rap in 1914, time he used honing his talent for drawing, a talent expressed as a child growing up in Québec, Canada, under his given name Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault. The boy’s fascination with horses and cowboys led him to the western United States where he assumed various aliases—perhaps in evasion of the law—eventually setting on Will James.

A real-life man with no name. A real-life drifter.

Throughout his life, he would call Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas home—and working as a cowboy the entire time. Not long after being released from the Nevada State Prison he was bucked off a horse and kicked in the jaw. It nearly killed him. His convalescence allowed for more focus on drawing. He went to Los Angeles for dental work and ended up as a stuntman for a brief period on Westerns.

With James’ cowboying career over, he focused on his artwork. He enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts in San Franscico where he met Maynard Dixon and Harold von Schmidt. They helped him get illustrating jobs with Sunset and Scribner’s magazines.

Dixon encouraged him to drop out of school, which he did.

“Canyon Trail”
Bill Anton
18"×24" | Oil

It wasn’t the last time. While later living in Santa Fe, he received a full-ride scholarship to Yale, but he left after a month. Couldn’t take it. The classes. The confinement. Connecticut, so far away from the West.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of James’ first book, Cowboys North and South,Claggett/Rey Gallery in Edwards, Colorado, presents a group show of the same name on view throughout the month of August. Gallery owner Bill Rey’s father, Jim Rey, a Western artist and cowboy himself, passed down a passion for James to his son.

“My dad grew up reading all the books, [and] they really resonated—[James’] horses had attitude and they have personality,” Bill Rey says. “I’ve always been a fan and I’ve watched his prices continually go up, but the more I got into his world, I started thinking we’re so far removed from it now, but a lot of the Western art world and gear makers and saddlemakers are still very much connected with the history of their lineage. If they’re really serious about it, Will James is definitely part of the conversation.”

The exhibition will feature mostly new work by 60 living artists—including Rey’s father—as well as a few drawings and ephemeral items from James. Prominent contemporary Western artists contributing include Bill Anton, William Matthews, Duke Beardsley, Martin Grelle, Bruce Green, Terri Kelly Moyers, John Moyers, Glenn Dean and more.

“All the artists are seasoned professionals, so they all have a lot of commitments and that they’re willing to do this, even if it’s one piece, that is an honor,” Rey says. “Almost everybody [I asked] accepted because they want to be part of something special. I think this show will really be a wonderful event historically.”

Cowboys North and South will feature more than just fine art. Rey invited one of the finest rawhide braiders in the world, Argentina’s Pablo Lozano, to participate. Canadian Silversmith Scott Hardy will have work on view, as well as Santa Fe hatmaker Scott O’Farrell. There will also be contemporary and historic photography, woven saddle blankets, saddles, antique chaps, hats, bits and spurs and other Western regalia for sale.

“CHamisa Moon”
Shawn Cameron
24"×20" | Oil

“We’re going to really make it feel like and embody the spirit of Will James,” Rey says.

The artists, like James, span the West.

“The different styles from the Montana cowboys to the buckaroos in the Great Basin in Nevada, to Wyoming cowboys, to Texas cowboys, to California, Spanish colonials and the vaqueros, there were differences in cowboys north and south,” Rey says, hinting at the book and exhibition’s title. “Different people who love horses, and differences not just in the way they handle horses, but the way they dress, their etiquette.”

James was familiar with these nuances from personal experience. Experiences he channeled into his artwork, particularly his drawings, James’ preferred medium. “The difference in his horses is, he learned it all from being on horseback, from participating in breaking wild mustangs. He didn’t observe it—he was living it,” Rey explains. “So much of the Western art world is paintings done from snapshots or paintings of people doing nothing but sitting on a horse. Will James’ horses had attitude. Their ears were cocked in different ways, their eyes, their nostril flares, their stance, you can tell what the horse was thinking by his drawings. Everyone in this show understands that in their art.”

“Martin Black”
Jay Dusard
38"×48" | Archival pigment print

James never romanticized the West—not in his novels, not in his artworks.

“He wasn’t into the gunfights and the fake nature of a lot of the things that were done [at the time],” Rey says. “[He] allowed people to understand what it was like to be a cowboy and to round up wild horses and what horses were thinking and the attitude and the way they interacted with other animals, and the beauty of nature mixed in with all that, and the hardships.”

Hardships external and self-imposed. Will James died of complications from alcoholism. 

Not all books have happy endings.