Lot 14
James Elwood Reynolds(1926-2010)Unwelcome Tracks 28 x 48in
25 November 2019, 12:00 PST
Los AngelesUS$40,000 - US$60,000
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James Elwood Reynolds (1926-2010)
Unwelcome Tracks
signed 'James Reynolds NAWA' (lower right)
oil on canvas
28 x 48in
Painted in 1991.
signed 'James Reynolds NAWA' (lower right)
oil on canvas
28 x 48in
Painted in 1991.
Footnotes
Provenance
O'Brien's Art Emporium, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Literature
D. Hedgpath, Traildust, Cowboys, Cattle and Country: The Art of James Reynolds, Shelton, The Greenwich Workshop, Inc., 2003, p. 89, full page color illustration.
In 1967, Reynolds gave up a solid career in the film industry and chose instead the uncertainty of a fine art future on a piece of raw land outside Sedona, Arizona. His art came alive there with the colors of sunup and sundown among the rugged red rocks and beneath the royal blue midday skies. There was an eager audience for his work through the galleries in Scottsdale, and the acceptance of his peers came with membership in the Cowboy Artists of America in 1968.
James Reynolds continued to paint from his heart and his love of landscapes remained a dominant force in his art. It was forever the places – wide open, wild and unscarred – that retained a fierce hold on James Reynolds' sensibilities and inspired his accomplished approach to painting.
The present work depicts Prairie warriors contemplating wagon tracks on the buffalo range. It foreshadows the demise of the buffalo and a traditional way of life. It also raises the spectre, as Don Hedgpeth notes, of an ambush. 'Shall the intruders be allowed to pass, or will their bones be left to bleach under the hot prairie sun?' 1
1 D. Hedgpeth, Traildust, Cowboys, Cattle and Country: The Art of James Reynolds, Shelton, The Greenwich Workshop, Inc., 2003, p. 88.
