Newell Convers Wyeth

(1882-1945)

"Who's afraid of his guns?" shouted McFarlane. "He daren't shoot in a square fight!" (Colts 45) 34 1/4 x 25 in. (87 x 63.5 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Santa Fe.
McAdoo Galleries, Inc., Santa Fe. (as Untitled)
Private collection, Sedona, acquired from the above, 1978.
By descent to the present owner from the above.

Literature
E.R. Mirrielees, "The Shooting at Raeder," McClure's Magazine, New York, June 1912, vol. xxxix, no. 2, p. 191, illustrated. (as "Who's afraid of his guns?" shouted McFarlane. "He daren't shoot in a square fight!")
D. Allen, D. Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals, New York, 1972, p. 266. (as "Who's afraid of his guns?" shouted McFarlane. "He daren't shoot in a square fight!")
"Santa Fe," Dandick's Travel Tips, Scottsdale, 1977, illustrated on the front cover.
McAdoo Galleries, Inc., untitled brochure, Santa Fe, vol. III, no. II, n.d., illustrated on the front cover. (as Untitled).
C.B. Podmaniczky, N.C. Wyeth Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, vol. I, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 2008, no. I.440 (644), p. 259, illustrated.

When considering the complete oeuvre of Newell Convers Wyeth, one cannot ignore his early and enduring fascination with the Old West, which was likely fueled by exposure to works done by Frederic Sackrider Remington (1861-1909) during his excursions west during the 1880's and 1890's. Having decided to become an artist himself at a young age, Wyeth sought an arts education at the Massachusetts Normal Art School near his childhood home in Massachusetts, but quickly found that he needed a greater level of excellence than was available locally. At the recommendation of friends and teachers, Wyeth relocated to Wilmington Delaware in the fall of 1902 to seek one of the twelve spots to study under famed illustrator Howard Pyle (1853-1911). During his early classes in 1903 at the Howard Pyle's School of Art, Wyeth began to execute Western-themed illustrations of his own creation which were quickly picked up by large publishers, including The Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Weekly.

Ever the stickler for authenticity, Pyle urged his students to deeply research the subjects they sought to illustrate and emphasized the necessity for firsthand experience to accurately execute the renderings, so after these works were produced, Pyle encouraged Wyeth to travel West. With this encouragement and Pyle's assistance in arranging a deal with Scribner's to fund the trip in exchange for the right of refusal for any pictures created on the excursion, as well as a few other publications, the then 22-year-old Wyeth headed for the western territories and states for the first time in the autumn of 1904. As noted Wyeth scholar Victoria Manning wrote of this adventure, "After a fifty-four-hour train ride through the Great Plains to Denver, Wyeth participated in a roundup for nine days. He was in the saddle from 5:30 am to dusk, observing "horse pitching and bucking" according to one of his letters. Later, he became a cowpuncher for the "Has Knife" outfit. He intended at first to sketch only as a guest, but eventually he felt compelled to actively join in the work. His trip continued from Colorado to the Navajo reservation, where he sketched Indians and hogans. In the midst of his many adventures, Mexicans raided Muddy Springs Post, stealing $500, including $85 from Wyeth. He enthusiastically joined the manhunt for several days, hoping to capture the thieves, but the posse proved unsuccessful. To earn money, he was forced to take a job as a mail carrier between Fort Defiance, Arizona and Reitz's Trading Post [Two Gray Hills] in New Mexico. The lonely trip took three days and covered one hundred miles over rugged terrain in the cold blowing sand and snow of Southwestern November." (V. Manning, in Visions of Adventure, N. C. Wyeth and the Brandywine Artists, New York, 2000, p. 77.)

Wyeth returned from his trip west in December of 1904 and was immediately inundated with requests from publishers to produce illustrations to accompany the literary tales portraying the Wild West which were much beloved by the American People. The upward trajectory continued and in October of 1905, Curtis Publishing Company, whose publications include Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, held a special exhibition of Wyeth's drawings in Philadelphia and engaged him to create more for the The Saturday Evening Post. His western pictures continued to bring him great success, so in 1906 Wyeth headed West again, though this time funded by Outing Magazine, where he had much better luck in keeping his funds from theft and returned with many pieces of Western and Native American costuming to use for future commissions. Though this would be his last trip West, the lessons and inspiration he would take would continue to make a profound impact on his career and creative output for many years to come.

Perhaps the most enduring reason publishers continued to commission his skills as an illustrator was Wyeth's ability to capture the climax of the story in pictorial form and bring life to the story, an ability few other illustrators were able to do in an authentic way for the Western genre. A prime example of this ability to capture the most exciting moment of the tale and create tension through illustration is the present work, "Who's afraid of his guns?". This work, along with ""The Swede's innocent all right. And he's got two guns." were created for The Shooting at Raeder by Edith Ronald Mirrielees, published in McClure's Magazine in June of 1912. The plot for The Shooting at Raeder centers around the protagonist, Brick Forbes, the Grass County attorney who had traveled into the small town of Raeder to campaign for renomination the day before the Republican Convention. The evening prior, a barman at Raeder's Saloon was shot and Forbes arrives with the town in a frenzy to punish the would-be shooter Mr. Olsen, a "crazy Swede sheep-herder" as the town physician describes. Forbes overhears conflicting reports regarding the alleged shooting and immediately sets off to the jail to speak with the Sheriff to determine what is being done by law enforcement to keep the peace. The Sheriff, wanting to do nothing that could endanger his own re-election, dismisses Forbes' idea to have the prisoner transferred to another jail for safety and is being called out of town, presumably to give the townspeople the opportunity to lynch Olsen in his absence. Upon this realization, Forbes takes the Sheriff's pistols and gives them to Olsen in the jail cell to defend himself while Forbes leaves the jail to meet with the local schoolteacher to formulate a plan to get Olsen safely out of town on the noon train, which stops just behind the jail. On his way back to the jail from his meeting with the teacher, Forbes discovers that the Sheriff has told the townsfolk of him giving Olsen the pistols and desire to get him out of town.

Forbes returns to the jail shortly before the crescendo of the tale, which Wyeth has chosen to portray in two panels. In the left panel, "The Swede's innocent all right. And he's got two guns.", Wyeth has portrayed a group of men in western garb heading towards the jail, fists tight or holding pistols, preparing to enact vigilante justice. Each of the figures is imbued with righteous anger, striding with the confidence that they are acting in the best interest of their community. In the right panel, "Who's afraid of his guns?", we see a darkened jail cell with a seated Olsen holding two pistols trained at the jail door. The darkened scene is illuminated only by the light coming through a thin vertical window, though Olsen appears stern and resolute in his self-determination of defense. From these images, Wyeth has created immense tension within the reader that the only possible outcome for the story is to end in a shootout between the townsfolk and Olsen. As noted Wyeth Scholar Kate F. Jennings wrote, "N.C. Wyeth's pictures convey both the rich color of the surroundings and the striking events and wonderous that occurred between man and nature and often, between man and man." (K.F. Jennings, N. C. Wyeth, New York, 1992, p. 19.)

Though luckily for Mr. Olsen, Forbes has hatched a plan with the local schoolteacher to give the illusion that Olsen is surrounded by schoolchildren in the jail cell. Out of fear of harming their children, the vigilante townsfolk refrain from shooting and Olsen slips out the back door of the jail to catch the train. It is only at the wail of the train leaving the station that Forbes opens the jail cell door, revealing that the 'children' are dummies and pets dressed in children's clothing. The lynch mob, rather than being angry, burst into fits of laughter and applaud Forbes' ingenuity and gumption.

Much like Wyeth, the writer of The Shooting at Raeder Edith Ronald Mirrielees undoubtedly likely drew from her own life experience to lend authenticity to her creative endeavors. Though born in Illinois, Mirrielees grew up in Big Timber, the county seat of Sweet Grass County, Montana, which is a stop along the Northern Pacific Railroad and a major wool-shipping depot. Big Timber was initially settled by Irish immigrants and the economy focused around the sawmill, though in the 1880's there was a large influx of Scandinavian, particularly Swedish, immigrants to the area that quickly expanded the area's wool production, and by 1895, Big Timber had the largest wool market in the United States, shipping more than five million pounds of wool that year. This immense success would undoubtedly create animosity towards the immigrant population from the nativist circles, and likely provided inspiration for The Shooting at Raeder. "Who's afraid of his guns?" is an example of N.C. Wyeth at the peak of his powers, capturing the most pivotal moment of a story, significantly enriching the reader's experience and narrative.