West by Southeast

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was in the Atlanta area visiting my son and his wife and decided to haul the family about an hour Northwest of the city to Cartersville, GA.

A small, unassuming exurban satellite to Atlanta, hardly associated with one of the more impressive -- and fun -- art museums I've ever been to. Anywhere.

Welcome to the December edition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist from Caricatures by Joel.

I'm referring to the Booth Western Art Museum. http://boothmuseum.org/

What a treat for this guy who, as a child of the '50s, looked forward to "Wyatt Earp" and "Maverick" and "Bat Masterson" and "Roy Rogers" and "The Lone Ranger" on the old black and white boob tube. And, in the "air cooled" movie theaters, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" and "Last Train from Gun Hill" (both featuring Kirk Douglas) and "Rio Bravo" and "Shane" and "The Lone Ranger." (Yes, they made a couple of feature length films of the latter, based on the tremendous popularity of the TV series.)

The Booth features movie posters and pulp Western book jacket illustrations and, of course, majestic paintings and photography and crafts and sculpture depicting the flora and fauna of magnificent settings like the Grand Canyon and the Rockies, along with those that explored and settled the territories -- the cowboy and the Native American.

For those of you who share my enthusiasm for this uniquely American substrata of art appreciation, there's a brand new art gallery in Charlotte, inspired in part, by the Booth.  And since they are a client of mine, I'm pleased to endorse them here. (But even if they weren't, you really owe it to yourself to check them out) http://www.cimarronskygallery.com/

Ironically, I have never indulged in tackling this subject myself, so I have little to show for my trumpeting.

Perhaps you'll indulge me, though, with these corporate assignments that, with the exception of one caricature -- of Tim Rowley, owner of Cimarron Sky Gallery (just below) -- at least have some element within them to tie into the Western theme. :-)

 

Incidentally, the art at the very top of this post is a book jacket cover illustrated some five decades ago by Sam Kweskin...I'm very proud to display. 

Adios until the first Tuesday of next month for another Yipee Ki-yo Ki-yay rendition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.