The Arts: Cowboy photographs by Erwin E. Smith

While the romantic images of the American cowboy fashioned by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell are familiar to everyone, the photographs taken of cowboy life around the turn of the last century by Erwin E. Smith are less so. Smith grew up in Texas collecting prints of paintings by artists like Remington and George Catlin. He studied with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago, then at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Between 1905 and 1912 he took thousands of photographs on ranches throughout Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. This site from the Amon Carter Museum in Texas is divided into sections such as Cowhand Clothing, Rodeo, and Ranches, and includes biographical data, a glossary of terms used by cowboys and ranchers, and resources for educators. <http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/smith/>