Wild West – June 2019

C

harles M. Russell and Joe De Yong had

much in common. Both came from the

St. Louis area. Both wanted to cowboy.

Both wound up in Montana.

And both wanted to paint the West as it was,

with painstaking attention to detail. It’s little

wonder De Yong became Russell’s protégé.

But De Yong also left his own legacy.

“De Yong was not only an accomplished artist and

illustrator himself, he also played an important role in shap-

ing the visual history of the Western as we know it,” says Em-

ily Crawford Wilson, curator of the C.M. Russell Museum in

Great Falls, Mont. “After Russell’s death, De Yong

worked as a film consultant on many early Western

movies that were the cornerstones of the West-

ern genre. His wellspring of visual knowledge

...literally shaped that distinct brand of

American visual culture for decades to

come.” William Reynolds gives the artist

his due in the illustrated biography Joe De

Yong: A Life in the West.

Born in Webster Groves, Mo., in 1894, De Yong worked on

area ranches as a youngster, sketching horses and cowboys in

his downtime. As a teen he got work as an extra on a Tom Mix

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ART OF THE WEST

WILD WEST JUNE 2019

WOULD-BE COWBOY JOE DE YONG MOVED TO MONTANA,

WORKED IN RUSSELL’S STUDIO AND LEFT HIS OWN ARTISTIC LEGACY

BY JOHNNY D. BOGGS

CHARLIE RUSSELL’S SIDEKICK

This Appaloosa painting typifies Joe

De Yong’s authentic renderings of

horse and rider. Below: Fans often

asked him to use his electric needle

to decorate a favorite Western hat.