Artist Focus: Den Schofield

A closer look at the artwork of Den Schofield

Many a Western artist has made their way to the genre by way of illustration, and Den Schofield is one of them. Having done work for a variety of major companies, including numerous publishing companies, Schofield made the leap into Western art and has not turned back. The Texian (detail), oil on canvas, 11 x 14”“From boyhood, Den has dreamed of creating pictures depicting dramatic characters and events, set against the great outdoors,” his website notes. “Throughout his career, he has sought to set his art in a historical context and has developed a reputation for accurately depicting historical subjects. As he has pursued his illustration career, Den has also developed his understanding of America’s dramatic Western frontier history. He has traveled extensively throughout the plains, mountains and deserts of the American West. Along the way, he has attended various rendezvous and reenactment activities, perused all manner of museums, and built his own respectable library on the subject of the Old West. Den’s paintings are as visually graphic and dynamic as the subject they depict.”Yellow Sky, oil on canvas, 16 x 20”The artist is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, after which he worked in the illustration world for 25 years. In 2006, he moved from Philadelphia to the town of Riverton, in central Wyoming. He has wished to live in the country where so much of the dramatic and colorful history of America’s Western frontier took place. Throughout his travels, Schofield has always been thrilled by the open, beautiful country that is the American West. —