Montebanks

1936

Throughout his career, Gifford Reynolds Beal painted subjects that celebrated American leisure pursuits in the decades between the two World Wars. In keeping with the extraordinary popularity of public rodeos during the Depression era, here the artist took on the theme of rodeo roughriders. The dynamism of the scene, in which two men help a third off a bucking horse, is enhanced by Beal’s brushy application of paint and use of bold lines.