Edward Borein: Etched by the West

 Edward Borein loved to cowboy. It was all he ever wanted to do growing up in San Leandro, California. He also loved to draw. It was something that he would fill free time with – drawing on anything he could find – paper bags, shoe box lids – anything. He got pretty good at it. Good enough that some of the fellow vaqueros he worked with on the sprawling Rancho Jesus Maria, in northern Santa Barbara County (now the Vandenberg Space Force Base) nudged him into sending some of his sketches to publisher Charles F. Lummis. Lummis took a liking to him and published a number of his drawings in an 1896 edition of his magazine, The Land of Sunshine. Borein received $15 for his work. 

Such was the beginning of a burgeoning art career for one John Edward Borein (1872 – 1945). His art career helped bring the imagery of the Southwest vaquero to a world rapidly moving into the future – where automobiles were replacing horses and electricity was bringing light to the dark. Borein worked in the era of Montana artist, Charles M. Russell, Frederick Remington, Will James and Joe De Yong, among others.

In acclaimed Western historian Byron Price’s new book, Edward Borein, Etched by the West, we are treated to an in depth look at the artist, his life and his work. The author should be familiar with anyone who loves the history and art of the American West as Price is one of the subject’s foremost scholars. His new book will be published in October by the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. The 336-page work, will include more than 400 images, many never before published. Michael Grauer, Curator of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum introduces the book with a gracious essay on its subject.

The book shares in great detail the story of Borein’s life and career path from working vaquero to successful illustrator to revered recorder and interpreter of the West “that was passing.” There is no one better to tell Borein’s story than Price, who brings more street cred to the project than any Western scholar living today. Price held the Charles M. Russell memorial Chair and was the director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, prior to his retirement in 2020...

With that background, Price has woven together many little-known details of Borein’s experiences in his native California, as well as his time in Mexico and New York, into a fascinating and uplifting story, with an in-depth look at the artist’s abilities in numerous art mediums, especially in etching. Borein’s Western scenes were in many cases romantic depictions of the cowboy world “before the wire.” That being the West before it was fenced with barbed wire eliminating a wide-open West that was the cowboy’s dream. The region he focused on was early Spanish Colonial California, and subjects included the Spanish Missions, Native Americans and cowboys and their ways of living. They were romantic to be sure, but like his friend Russell, the scenes depicted were what they knew and lived and didn’t want us to forget.

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