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Permanent Collection
A Canadian who began his life in the saddle as a teenager in western Canada, Will James knew the ways of the cowboy trade inside out. A natural storyteller and observant draftsman, James turned to a career as a writer and illustrator about 1920. Between 1922 and 1942, Scribner's published nearly two dozen books written and illustrated by James. The Billings area was home base for him between 1926 and 1942. .
This painting was published on the cover of Lone Cowboy, a fictionalized autobiography reprinted in 1996 by Mountain Press, Missoula, Montana.
Over the course of a few years in the 1980s, the YAM acquired the Virginia Snook Collection, the largest public collection of the drawings, paintings, books, and memorabilia of cowboy illustrator Will James (1892-1942). The Snook collection also includes paintings and drawings by other historic regional artists, including Joseph Henry Sharp, Charles M. Russell, and others.
View nearly 200 of Will James's works from our collection on Montana Memory Project website. |
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