Painters

As a college freshman at Dillon, Montana I frequently heard people brag about a great Montana artist. He was a cowboy who became the most famous artist in Montana history. Recently, I met the man’s son, Jack, who retired in Oceanside, California. He showed me a picture of himself and his parents in an old issue of National Geographic. Jack told me stories about his father and mother.

Jack’s father moved from an eastern city and traveled west to realize his childhood dreams of becoming a cowboy. In Montana he learned to handle cow cutting horses. He worked and lived as a cow-hand and gradually built a reputation for himself. People knew him as the man who gave away his now priceless works of art. Sitting around a camp fire or holed up in a saloon, the man spent hours swapping funny stories and lies with other cow-men. As he spoke, he used a small piece of clay or wax to fashion remarkable figures of horses, long-horned steer, buffalo, Indians and cowboys. He knew and studied the Indians. His paintings were authentic in detail and often humorous. They showed the wildest activity he could describe. He drew cowboys getting tangled in their lariats or falling from bucking horses. He portrayed Montana Indians in authentic tribal dress. He took the time and trouble to get to know the Indians and to collect their costumes and paraphernalia.

He attracted national interest with a drawing of dying, starving cattle during an especially cold year out west. It appeared in print through-out the United States and was the beginning of his fame. Afterwards he used the skull of a horned steer as his signature.

He married a woman while he was still a poor cowboy. She began promoting and selling his art. Business was not interesting to the cowboy artist, and he sometimes gave away masterpieces for free drinks at bars. His wife made him important to Montana and to the world. When she had saved enough money they traveled around the country where she sold his sculptures, drawings and paintings.

The artist was sometimes mistaken for Will Rogers. They looked and talked like brothers and became close friends. The cowboy’s son, Jack, told me of extended visits he and his parents spent at Will Roger’s home off Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. It was a ranch not far from the Pacific Ocean near Malibu Beach.

Will Rogers had a son who was a wonderful friend and playmate for Jack. The boys were about the same age and had similar interests. While they played games outside, the cowboy artist and Will Rogers swapped funny stories. Jack insists his father was a better story teller than Will Rogers. I found this difficult to believe because I have heard Will Rogers talk, and I always figured he was a champion talker. He was loved and respected. People wanted to elect him president of the country. Anyway, the cowboy artist became the most important man in Montana history and his name was Charlie Russell.

Larry Zabel, my life-long friend, is a wonderful western oil painter who lives in Montana. Larry studied oil painting in Mexico City, later worked as an artist and a movie producer for the U.S. Navy, retired and moved to Montana to where he became a great and successful western art Painter. His paintings are realistic almost like photographs. They usually portray Montana snow capped mountains, cowboys, and animals. My favorite work was on wood when he was in high school. He painted a Mexican bull fight. Shadows were carved into wood and crushed Christmas tree bulbs made up the matador’s suit of lights. Larry is a good fisherman and hunter who appreciates modern jazz music and jazz singers. After moving to Montana he now enjoys Country Western Music.

I will tell you about another great artist I met in Fallbrook, California. In the mid 1920’s John Reed worked in Los Angeles as a commercial artist. The Cotton Club was known for Jazz music where Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and many big bands performed. Sometimes the place was crowded with people, but when it wasn't full it looked like the performers played to an empty room. John Reed, the artist, was hired to find a solution. He solved the problem by designing curtains to make the room small for cozy audiences, another curtain for mid-sized attendance, and a third or forth curtain for crowds.

In the late 1920’s John was hired by Walt Disney as an animator for short cartoons. At first he was paid eighteen dollars a week. He learned all about making cartoons, worked on feature productions and trained other artists in the art of animation. His name appears in credits of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Make Mine Music, Alice and Wonderland, Uncle Remus, Silly Symphonies and others.

During world War Two, John worked for the U. S. government making secret films as director of training films for the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics.

After the war, Walt Disney had John sign a three year contract to help J. Arthur Rank start an English cartoon industry called Rank’s Gaumont British Film Productions. J. Arthur Rank movies usually are prefaced by a man striking a huge gong. On the side, John did easel paintings and had exhibitions in England, Scotland, France, and Italy. He married a beautiful English woman who lived in a castle. The castle was very large with about fifteen bedrooms, and it had actually been a monastery for monks. When John visited his future wife, he was greeted at the door by a butler. (John later told me his wife had been charmed by his lack of English standards of behavior.) During the many years he lived in England, he established John Reed Productions. His company did commercials including the Put A Tiger In Your Tank cartoon. After retirement, John spent thirteen years in the Canary Islands where one of his paintings was presented to President Truman. Truman was on his way to Europe during the war with Japan. In 1980 John settled in Fallbrook, California. During the years I knew him, he did several lovely drawings for me I cherish. He signed all his drawings he gave me. John Reed died but lives in my heart as my friend.

John Reed had worked on most of the Disney films, but he did not tell me about Walt Disney. My brother Ron knew Walt Disney having met him while Ron worked for thirty years as an entertainer at Disneyland. Ron mentioned to me that he used to see Walt walking all over the amusement park and in the back stage area where the entertainers rested or ate their lunches. As Walt strolled, he was followed by a group of executives. A man with a notebook walked close to Walt taking notes dictated by Disney.

Ron said, “Mr. Disney was very observant and extremely sensitive to detail. He wanted Disneyland to be as near perfect as he could make it. He insisted that all employees be in a proper costume, clean and with their hair well groomed. Men were not allowed to wear beards or mustaches. Entertainers and all other employees were required to use clean family language free of base humor. In other words, no cussing or dirty signals of any kind. Of course, he didn’t object when the dancing girls hiked up their skirts and showed their panties. That was O.K.”

Ron Browne continued,“I saw Mr. Disney take a step backwards from the entrance to various attractions. He wanted the customers to see each attraction in a special setting without seeing something out of place at the sides of vision or in the background. In other words, when you are entering Frontier Land, you shouldn’t be able to see any of Tomorrow Land, or Jungle Land. If he had to move an attraction over a few feet so it would look right, he spent the money to go ahead and have it moved. He was a perfectionist. One day I was eating a sandwich seated at a table backstage. It was a hot day and there was no shade for the table. Mr. Disney noticed me eating and spoke to me saying, “I’m sorry you have to sit in the hot sun to eat your lunch. I’ll have some shade put up for that table for the next meal you have here.”

My wife, Barbara, has reproduced thousands of copies of my paintings for our business calendars. She considers me one of the painters. She flatters me.