222 The Lookout

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2015 Apr 11 @ 14:53UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Western Americana
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 80,000.00 - 120,000.00 USD
The Lookout
Artist: Berninghaus, OscarDate of Birth: 1874-1952
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 24 x 30 inches
Signed: Signed lower left

Oscar Berninghaus isnÕt known for painting cowboys, especially after he moved to Taos. No, he generally stuck with Indians and left the cowboys to his friend, fellow Taos artist Buck Dunton. But The Lookout shows that Berninghaus was every bit as capable of capturing the romance and loneliness of range life as DuntonÑor Frank Tenney Johnson or Maynard Dixon, for that matter. Half in shadow, half in sunlight, under the wanderings of one of those big clouds rolling through the sky, the lookout sits on the high ground, surveying the herd. Half turned, with his left arm on the horseÕs rump, he seems to be just at the point of straining to see something off to his left. HeÕs still relaxed, and the horses are quiet, but thereÕs a shimmer of tension in the air. It might be nothing, or he might be about to earn his keep. A St. Louis native, Berninghaus began his career as a highly skilled and sought after draftsman. When the Anheuser- Busch Brewing Company commissioned him to do the artwork for series of advertising lithographs based on scenes from the settlement of the West, his reputation soared and began to take a serous interest in painting the American West. Then, on his first real trip West, a chance encounter led him to Taos, whose picturesque people and landscape and the quality of light and color enthralled him. Berninghaus would make Taos his home and become one of the founders of the Taos Society.