356 McCain, Buck - The Invocation

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2018 Jan 20 @ 11:41UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 100,000.00 - 175,000.00 USD
The Invocation
Artist: McCain, BuckDate of Birth: b. 1943
Medium: Bronze, cast number 2/9
Dimensions: 162 x 108
Signed: Signed, titled and dated 1990
Verso:
Frame/Outer Dim: 162 x 48 x 108
Buck McCain, a fifth generation Southern California rancher, took a few art courses while studying pre-med. His art teacher urged him to keep on and McCain painted on the side as he ranched in Nevada after college, eventually doing paintings for a department store in Los Angeles, then traveling to Europe to study. Scottsdale sculptor Ernest Berke encouraged McCain to try three dimensions, and McCain added muscular bronzes, dramatic and heroic works like Cowboy, The Monarch, and Invocation to his already notable paintings.
Invocation recalls James Earle Fraser’s End of the Trail—the single Native American on a horse with its head bowed—if Fraser has cast his Indian in a mood a defiance rather than resignation. Here, instead, man and mount have a strong wind at their backs—you can see it in the horse’s mane and tail—and the prayer contained in the upraised buffalo skull is more a confirmation of strength, an assurance of victory, rather than an offering of appeasement to a deity who may not be listening.
This lot is illustrated in The Story of Leanin’ Tree on page 456
A copy of the book will accompany this lot