XIT, being a new and original exploration, in art and words, into the life and times of the American cowboy

Description:

The era of the great American cowboy lasted only two decades. Those were the years of open range, cantankerous longhorns, and the great cattle drives north. Cowboys rode for weeks, fought sand, snow, drought, and alkali water--on a diet of coffee and beans and a stolen hour's sleep. The American Cowboy is a celebration of that life and those times. The celebration rings all the more true because of the backgrounds of the ten artists who have created the paintings in this book. All of them have been cowboys and dusted saddles in modern times in Texas and the Southwest. Each of the artists has his own style and method of expression, but all of them know the hard reality of a cowboy's life on the plain. These artists have banded together under the registered brand of XIT (Ten in Texas) to produce this volume that is an art book, but far more than an art book. It is an exploration of the cowboy's way of life, authentically depicted with accuracy of detail and depth of feeling that could only be captured by cowboys themselves. Here is the loneliness, the sweat, th feat, the humor, the frustration, the cold, and the fatigue that made up a cowboy's existence. Stripped of its romance and all of the movie clichés, the cowboy's life was one few of us could endure. The XIT artists have painted him the way he truly was, an entirely different kind of hero than fiction has led us to believe. Their art, reproduced painstakingly and in full color in this book, tells the story of the Old West in deeply personal terms. The beauty of the paintings is not surprising given the remarkable range of colors and variety of landscapes against which the cowboy lived his life -- Book jacket.

subjects: American Art,  Cowboys,  Cowboys in art,  Modern Art

Places: Texas

Times: 20th century