Smoking Cowboy Art

Smoking Cowboy Art by Caya Crum

Caya paints cowboys the way people actually look at a rodeo: close, head-on, and a little suspicious of you. Tex, Clyde, Cash, Hank, Waylon, Jimmy James, the Oil Baron, Red Hair Jack, the Ghost Cowboy with nobody inside the hat. Each smoking cowboy stands against one flat color, hot pink, mustard, navy, and looks straight out of the frame with a cigarette going. It is cowboy art for people who grew up around cowboys and would like the wall to know it.

The Smoking Cowgirls

The rodeo queens hold their own wall: Emma, Hanna, Lana, Dorothy, Mattie, Billie, Tavi, and both Mildreds, one on foot and one airborne on a bucking horse halfway between Pecos and Los Angeles. A smoking cowgirl print reads as a portrait of a woman who has already won and is thinking about something else entirely. They hang in pairs, in threes, or all five together in The Smoking Cowgirls Set.

Why a Cowboy Smoking a Cigarette

Because that is how the men in the old rodeo programs stood, and because a lit cigarette gives a portrait a clock. Something is burning down while he looks at you. Caya has not been able to paint them fast enough, and they are the prints people ask about first at the booth.

How They Hang

One 16x20 over a bar cart or a dresser is the classic move. Three 11x14s in a row is a bunkhouse. We make the sets ourselves: The Smoke Break Set, The Bunkhouse Set, The Night Ride Set, The Outlaw Set, and The Rodeo Queens Set. Every print is signed for you by hand in Fort Worth, Texas, and sized to fit a frame from any store.

Questions

Are these paintings or prints? Both. Caya paints each cowboy on paper or board, and we make fine art prints from the originals in five sizes. A few originals are listed when they are available, including the Midnight Smokers and the Van Gogh Cowboy.

Which smoking cowboy is the best seller? Clyde, then the Red Headed Stranger. Among the cowgirls it is Mildred on her bucking horse, then Lana in the red scarf.

Do the cowboys and cowgirls match as a set? Yes. They are painted at the same scale with the same flat backgrounds, so any three hang together. The sets above are the combinations we like best, but you can pick any three in the gallery wall planner.

Is this western art or pop art? It is both, which is the point. The subject is western. The color is pop. Nobody else is painting cowboys this way, which is why they get photographed in people's houses.

More in this direction: cowboy art, cowgirl art, cigarette art, fridge cig and Diet Coke art, rodeo art, or western wall art.