A hot sun hung in the bright blue Arizona sky on the afternoon of June 23, 1965. George Phippen, who also painted cowboy pictures, drove over from Prescott to join Dye, Hampton, and Beeler at Sedona's Oak Creek Tavern, where the beer was cold and kept coming. Phippen, like the other three who sat in the shadows of a back booth in the bar, was well known to the relatively small and regional audience for contemporary Western art. Together, the four of them in the bar that day comprised the best of the bunch of artists scattered from Texas to Montana who made a modest living painting pictures of cowboys and Indians and were active participants in the life they portrayed in their art. And in Sedona, on that hot Arizona afternoon, the four of them talked, laughed, drank beer, and founded the organization of artists that would become a full-blown cultural phenomenon.
A few days later, in Charlie Dye's Sedona studio, the four met again to formalize their ideas for the new organization. They agreed on the name, Cowboy Artists of America, and stated their objectives:
.to perpetuate the memory and culture of the Old West as typified by the late Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, and others; to insure authentic representations of the life of the West, as it was and is; to maintain standards of quality in contemporary Western art; to help guide collectors of Western art; to give mutual assistance in protection of artists' rights; to conduct a trail ride and campout in some locality of special interest once a year; and to hold an annual joint exhibition of the works of active members.
The core group of original members was extended to include Fred Harman of Albuquerque, who was not only a Western painter, but also well known as the creator of the popular Red Ryder syndicated comic strip. Word spread quickly of the new upstart organization, and informal applications for membership began to come in from all over the West and even from places as unlikely as Connecticut. The attraction in the beginning was not related to any tangible prospect of prosperity, but had more to do with common interests and experiences and that old coyote kind of craving for camaraderie. No one could have foreseen the bright future that lay ahead for this hybrid mix of men living out their dreams of cowboys and Indians in both their lives and their art. But the Cowboy Artists seemed blessed from the beginning by the coincidental circumstances of good fortune.
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History
