This Week in the West: Edward Borein and the Authentic West

🤠This Week in the West
🎙️ Episode 81: Edward Borein and the Authentic West 

📢 Episode Summary:
This episode of This Week in The West explores the life and legacy of Western artist and cowboy Edward Borein, whose work helped preserve an authentic visual record of the American West. The episode opens with Borein’s early years in California, where he watched cattle drives as a child and quickly developed both artistic talent and cowboy skills. By the age of eighteen, he was working ranches across California and Mexico, sketching the people, horses and landscapes he encountered along the way.

The podcast highlights Borein’s insistence on authenticity in his art, a quality that distinguished him from many artists who romanticized the West from afar. Listeners learn how Borein’s firsthand experiences shaped his illustrations for major publications like Harper’s, Collier’s Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. The episode also covers his friendships with influential Western figures, including Will Rogers, Buffalo Bill Cody and fellow artist Charles Marion Russell, who encouraged Borein’s development as a painter.

The final portion of the episode follows Borein’s return to California in the 1920s, where he refined the etching style that would make him famous. His studio in Santa Barbara became a gathering place for artists and storytellers, while his work documented cowboy life, stagecoaches, missions and Indigenous communities with remarkable detail. The episode concludes by examining Borein’s lasting legacy, including his inclusion in the permanent collection of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and his posthumous induction into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1971.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

• How artist and cowboy Edward Borein used firsthand experience on ranches in California and Mexico to create some of the most authentic visual records of the American West.
• Why Borein’s dedication to accuracy set him apart from many early Western artists and earned him comparisons to fellow Western art legend Charles Marion Russell.
• How Borein’s work evolved from cowboy sketches and magazine illustrations into internationally recognized etchings, watercolors and paintings that are now preserved in museums, including the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

👥 Behind the Scenes
Host: Seth Spillman
Producer: Chase Spivey
Writer: Mike Koehler

🔗 Further research:

• Santa Monica Historical Museum’s Edward Borein Gallery: https://www.sbhistorical.org/borein-2/
• Video lecture: Etched by the West, the Life and Art of Edward Borein by Byron Price: https://youtu.be/6lz3ZrhAup8?si=9BWQWvOUxs6WC0Iu
• Antiques Roadshow appraises Edward Borein etchings: https://www.pbs.org/video/antiques-roadshow-appraisal-edward-borein-etchings-ca-1930/

📬 Connect With Us:
🌐 Website: www.thecowboy.org
📖 Read Our Blog: https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/blog/
📩 Email: podcast@thecowboy.org
📲Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/ncwhm/
📷Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nationalcowboymuseum
❎X/Twitter: https://x.com/ncwhm
💼LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-cowboy-&-western-heritage-museum

🗺️ Visit Us: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK, 73111. See us on the map

🎟️: You can now buy tickets to The Cowboy online, go to https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/tickets/

💡 Support Us:🏅Become A Member of the Museum: https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/support/memberships/

🛒Shop at Persimmon Hill, our Museum store: https://persimmonhillstore.com/

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:
🔹 Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-the-west/id1776228708
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KYmd2BumVtQVH1ez1Cr2U
🔹YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFoE2kU21JpX9T6W9NonXuD9UapS1TsmN
🔹Podbean: https://thisweekinthewest.podbean.com/ 

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate & review!