The Evolution of Cowboy Culture
One of the 4 themes in our current exhibit, Picturing the American West, highlights artworks that depict the long-standing narratives of Cowboys vs. American Indians. But as scholars have shown, the conflicts between “cowboys and Indians” are more myth than reality, and were often the product of imagination from dime store novels and popular “Westerns” of film and television. Attack on the Herd (Close Call) | Charles Schreyvogel | c. 1907 | Oil on canvas | 26.125 x 34.25 inches Many who joined the cattle drives of the late 19th century were of African, Mexican, and Indigenous descent. [...]