In this month’s issue, we dive into two very unique subjects that I want to highlight here.
The first one is Gina Teichert’s feature on photographer Jim Krantz. If you’ve seen basically any magazine since the 1980s, you’ve probably seen his work. And chances are it was one of his ads featuring the Marlboro Man, the rugged cigarette-smoking cowboy who turned a woman’s cigarette into the manliest product on the American market. These ads were a sensation when they came out and have since been called one of the most successful ad campaigns ever created. Of course, these ads are problematic today since they brought smoking, and all their associated health risks (and deaths), to a new generation of smokers, particularly men. One of the positive elements of the ads was how the Marlboro Man brought the American cowboy into the culture in a very unique way. And Krantz was one of the photographers who made it happen. Gina writes about him, as well as the work of Richard Prince, who appropriated the Marlboro Man ads for his own artwork. The article poses an interesting question: who owns these timeless images? I hope it’s a question you ask yourself as you read it.
The second feature I want to draw your attention to is my piece on Maynard Dixon’s Cloud World, which was recently acquired by the Denver Art Museum. It’s rare when a painting this iconic comes on the market, and even rarer when it lands at a major museum. I take you inside the deal that made it happen, and then also take you back through the painting’s lifespan. Every work of art has at least two stories: one that concerns what’s in the art (the image, subject and narrative) and the other that concerns the art itself (the physical object that came into being and then moved through the art world). The article covers both stories, and why they are both important not just in the Western genre, but in all of American art as well.
Thank you for reading Western Art Collector, and thank you for letting us dig a little deeper as we celebrate Western art every month. I hope you enjoy this issue. —
Michael Clawson
Executive Editor
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