According to Price, the cowboy — and the cowgirl for that matter — is still out there: riding the range, roping steer, and moving cattle to market, even if by pickup truck or railroad car. Price is guest curator of the New Mexico History Museum’s exhibition Cowboys Real and Imagined, which opens Sunday, April 14, and runs for 11 months. Price delivers an opening-day lecture at the museum. The cowboy has long been an integral character in the mythology of both the American West and the United States as a whole. In the late-19th and early-20th century, cinema, radio, advertising, and publications — primarily dime novels and later comics — hijacked the working-class cowboy and turned him into a gun-toting superhero capable of righting wrongs on the range while warbling corny tunes or engaging in John Wayne-type acts of valor.That image is still strong. A current T-Mobile commercial plays up the cowboy myth with a bunch of mean-looking hombres riding into a dusty trail town hellbent on causing trouble — until one of them displays true cowboy independence by breaking away from the rest in an effort to provide better mobile phone service. Cowboys Real and Imagined features nearly 1,000 artifacts, including historical clothing, tools, saddles, blacksmith accouterments, chuck wagons, windmills, water tanks, and sombreros. The show also has more than 200 photographs, tintypes, and artistic renderings of the cowboy way of life. It follows the evolution of the old cowhand from his humble, hardworking roots to his status as a pop-culture hero. The exhibition makes room for radio commercials and musical jingles, advertising imagery (the Marlboro Man was a cowboy, remember), gaudy rodeo attire, and movie posters. “The cowboy has undergone a metamorphosis of image, and that is the theme of this show,” Price said by phone from his office in Oklahoma. “The show covers the origins of the cowboy hero and how he has been utilized for every purpose from politics to advertising...more
Monday, April 15, 2013
The bold buckaroo: An exhibition of mystic and bona fide cowboys
According to Price, the cowboy — and the cowgirl for that matter — is still out there: riding the range, roping steer, and moving cattle to market, even if by pickup truck or railroad car. Price is guest curator of the New Mexico History Museum’s exhibition Cowboys Real and Imagined, which opens Sunday, April 14, and runs for 11 months. Price delivers an opening-day lecture at the museum. The cowboy has long been an integral character in the mythology of both the American West and the United States as a whole. In the late-19th and early-20th century, cinema, radio, advertising, and publications — primarily dime novels and later comics — hijacked the working-class cowboy and turned him into a gun-toting superhero capable of righting wrongs on the range while warbling corny tunes or engaging in John Wayne-type acts of valor.That image is still strong. A current T-Mobile commercial plays up the cowboy myth with a bunch of mean-looking hombres riding into a dusty trail town hellbent on causing trouble — until one of them displays true cowboy independence by breaking away from the rest in an effort to provide better mobile phone service. Cowboys Real and Imagined features nearly 1,000 artifacts, including historical clothing, tools, saddles, blacksmith accouterments, chuck wagons, windmills, water tanks, and sombreros. The show also has more than 200 photographs, tintypes, and artistic renderings of the cowboy way of life. It follows the evolution of the old cowhand from his humble, hardworking roots to his status as a pop-culture hero. The exhibition makes room for radio commercials and musical jingles, advertising imagery (the Marlboro Man was a cowboy, remember), gaudy rodeo attire, and movie posters. “The cowboy has undergone a metamorphosis of image, and that is the theme of this show,” Price said by phone from his office in Oklahoma. “The show covers the origins of the cowboy hero and how he has been utilized for every purpose from politics to advertising...more
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