Born in the cattle town of San Leandro, near Oakland, Borein
was thrilled by the cattle drives he watched from the time he
was a small child, and captivated by the romance and adventure
they exuded. He also witnessed a rapidly changing West as fences
closed off the open range, herds of buffalo disappeared, and
Native Americans were driven onto reservations. He became determined
to sketch and draw the essence of the passing scene before it
was gone for good.
In 1890, when he was eighteen, Borein bought a horse and went
to work herding cattle. He could not yet endure the rough life
of a ranch hand and left for home after a year. When his mother
saw sketches he had made on the ranch, she decided his future
lay in being an artist rather than a cowboy, and enrolled him
in classes at the Art School of the San Francisco Art Association.
However, the young man felt just as uncomfortable in the stuffy
art school atmosphere as he had in the wide-open spaces of the
ranch and again returned home, this time after just one month.
Resuming the life of a cowboy, Borein worked on several ranches
during the next few years while he continued to draw. At last
he was doing the two things he loved most: ranching and sketching.
When he sold a drawing to Charles Lummis, the flamboyant publisher
of The Land of Sunshine magazine, his career as an
illustrator was launched.
The opportunity to work as a vaquero sent Borein on a cattle
drive down the west coast of Mexico. He sketched the fascinating
Mexican charros and their elaborate gear nearly constantly.
Once the cattle drive was over, he meandered through the Southwest
for two years then traveled back to the Bay Area. His job as
a newspaper artist was dissatisfying, so he headed south to
Mexico again. After working on another large cattle drive, he
returned to San Francisco, but this time he set up his own studio.
Using the large cache of sketches and drawings he had made on
the trail, he illustrated articles for local publications and
drew advertisements for Stetson hats and other popular products.
Borein’s West was largely devoid of the commotion and
violence featured in many paintings of cowboys and ranch life
at that time. He was just as likely to draw stolid cattle with
their heads down, trudging along a dusty trail, as he was to
portray a herd raising a ruckus. His main occupation was to
show cowboys doing their jobs; horses and cattle served as their
props.
After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged his studio,
Borein went to New York City at the urging of friends who thought
he would do well there. Growing national interest in the West
created a market for his illustrations of western life. As his
friends had predicted, his move to New York did benefit his
career. He met many important people with a keen interest in
the West, from Theodore Roosevelt to Frank Tenney Johnson, Will
Rogers, Annie Oakley, and “Buffalo Bill” Cody. When
he met Charlie and Nancy Russell, then sojourning in New York,
the two artists began a life-long friendship. They and others
often met in Borein’s studio, which he had furnished lavishly
with Mexican and Indian artifacts to create a western haven,
to trade stories they called “windies.” He also
took advantage of etching classes at the Art Students League
and mastered the medium, which became one of his favorites and
the source of most of his income. It has been said that he gave
up oils for printmaking after seeing Russell’s work. Whether
or not the story is true, his decision to work as an etcher
was fortuitous, for he was naturally gifted.
After twelve years in New York, Borein returned to California
and settled in Santa Barbara with his wife, Lucille, for whom
he created Buckskin and Feathers, one of his finest
etchings. By then he was among the most popular and prolific
western artists in America, with illustrations in the widely
read magazines Harper’s, Collier’s, Sunset, The
Saturday Evening Post, and Western World.
Borein’s California studio was as popular as the one
he left behind in New York. By then a well-established artist,
he participated in art colony activities in Santa Barbara, taught
etching at the Santa Barbara School of the Arts, and illustrated
many books. Gregarious and charming and always dressed in full
cowboy regalia, he associated with the cowboys and actors working
in the fledgling cowboy movie industry in Los Angeles.
When he died of a heart attack in 1945, Borein was eulogized
as the “last artist of the longhorn era.” He left
behind an extensive legacy of drawings, etchings, watercolors,
and oil paintings that preserve the look and feel of a place
and time that might otherwise have been largely forgotten. Borein
was posthumously inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1971.
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