The
Swing Rider
This calendar print was repoduced on a 1955
calendar published by the Thos. D. Murphy Co., Red Oak, Iowa.
Sizes I have found:
18 1/4 x 25 1/2 inches
From a 1951 painting titled: The Swing Rider
Oil on canvas, 28 x 38 inches
Dust clouds rise from mesquite covered plateaus
toward towering, rock, flat-topped mesas. Winding its way through
the valleys between these perpendicular walls of rock, a heard
of cattle is driven toward better grazing land.
In their saddles two swing riders tend their jobs
of seeing that none of the cattle stray from the herd. The swing
rider rides fairly close to the herd, not too far back from
the men riding point. These point riders ride ahead
of the herd or up along side of the front cattle. The direction
of the herd is controlled by the point rider. At the tail end
of the herd are men who ride the drag, so-called drag
riders.
Rope a-swinging the swing rider is alert to any movement
of a contrary critter which might break away. The
day is long, dusty, and the sun unrelenting, but the chuck wagon
will be waiting when the sun drops behind the rocky western
horizon.
During the day when Pancho Villa was kicking up trouble along
the Mexican border, artist Olaf Wieghorst was a member of the
5th United States Cavalry which was on Pancho Villas heels.
Wieghorst came to this country in 1918 from Denmark while in
his teens. His constant association with horses in western United
States has given Wieghorst an opportunity to study them under
all conditions. During his travels Wieghorst was constantly
making sketches of horses and cowboy life on any piece of scrap
paper.
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