Friday, August 13, 2010

Casual Friday

Friday the 13th and a few more days to enjoy the freedom of this summer before it's back to the classroom. I'm usually pretty verbose in this blog, but today is mostly pictures. These are from a set of postcards sent to my grandfather about 100 years ago. They are one of two things I have from him (the other is a mustache brush), and they came to him from a cousin, when he was still a young man.

The folder around the cards says, "Greetings from Pendleton, Oregon." There is a one-cent stamp on it, but the postmark is too blurred to read. I'm fond of these old illustrations of cowboy life from the Old West. I've been putting up a different one every week on the sidebar of this page. Today I'm showing most of the rest of them.

The artist is known to me only as F. W. Schultz. I've been unable to find out any more about him or her. They are all dated 1907, which by chance falls in the period of western fiction I'm currently studying. [As usual, click to see them larger. Enjoy.]











Coming up: Review of Mark Lee Gardner's To Hell on a Fast Horse and Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
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14 comments:

  1. Walker MartinAugust 13, 2010 at 7:47 AM

    These excellent scenes remind me of the series of 20 or so covers that Gayle Hoskins did for Street & Smith's WESTERN STORY. Titled "A Day in the Life of a Cowboy", the covers began Jan 10, 1931 and each week showed a different scene in the cowboy's life. The series was so popular with the readers that the publisher reprinted them in a packet suitable for framing and mailed them to subscribers, etc.

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  2. Charles GramlichAugust 13, 2010 at 8:55 AM

    Great pics. Almost time to go back to school my ownself. Starting on Wednesday. Sigh.

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  3. cheyenne jonesAugust 13, 2010 at 11:19 AM

    Reminds me of those early B&W films, shown before the main feature. How good are they? Brilliant!

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  4. Ron ScheerAugust 13, 2010 at 8:01 PM

    Walker Martin, I'd love to see that series. Available online anywhere?

    Charles, Thursday for me. Call from chairman today; my schedule is still getting sorted out.

    Cheyenne, glad you like them. Some of them have really nice details, like the calf nursing in the first one.

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  5. sageAugust 14, 2010 at 3:05 PM

    wonderful paintings--even by 1907, they were romancing the west!

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  6. pattinase (abbott)August 15, 2010 at 4:29 AM

    They are just wonderful paintings. I have some drawings my grandfather did for the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh (he was an architect on the project) and two Christmas cards he did on wood blocks and I treasure them.

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  7. AnonymousAugust 15, 2010 at 1:08 PM

    There is an off chance that these are the early work of Hart Merriam Schultz, artist son of the great novelist of the Blackfeet, James Willard Schultz, whose various novels and romantic memoirs of early Blackfoot life, and the area east of Glacier Park, and among my most treasured books. Hart Merriam Schultz was born in 1882, and would have been entirely conversant with the topical material posted here. He took the name Lone Wolf, and lived into modern times.

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  8. AnonymousAugust 15, 2010 at 4:39 PM

    Update: it is unlikely that these were painted by Lone Wolf, Hart Merriam Schultz. He didn't begin his art training until after these postcards were done, and his subjects were largely Indian.

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  9. Ron ScheerAugust 15, 2010 at 8:24 PM

    Patti - I know the Cathedral of Learning in Pgh. The architecture is very Old World and in keeping, I suppose with the Carnegies, Mellons, and other Pgh families of 100 years ago. I have a memory of taking the GRE exam there.

    Richard, I've read about Schultz, My Life as an Indian and other books, but I've never gotten around to reading them. I should.

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  10. tralrdrFebruary 12, 2012 at 11:45 AM

    FW Schultz was a well known illustrator for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News around this time period. I have 3 of his originals and am trying to value them; they are beautiful, given to my Great Grandfather in trade for some work back around 1906-1907 or so and in fact, one of them is actually the original of Branding Mavericks, the other 2 I do not know the titles.

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  11. blue hole dudeJuly 23, 2016 at 4:35 PM

    F.W. Schultz might have been a traveling artist in the extreme West Texas area around Vega, Adrian, Boise and Glenrio. That places him in the expanded Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News region. Interesting -- eastern New Mexicans had no problem getting those newspapers through the early 1990s. Maybe he had a connection to the Pisa and/or Ellis families in WT.

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  12. blue hole dudeJuly 23, 2016 at 4:36 PM

    F.W. Schultz might have been a traveling artist in the extreme West Texas area around Vega, Adrian, Boise and Glenrio. That places him in the expanded Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News region. Interesting -- eastern New Mexicans had no problem getting those newspapers through the early 1990s. Maybe he had a connection to the Pisa and/or Ellis families in WT.

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  13. tralrdrFebruary 14, 2019 at 5:35 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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