There was only one artist who painted Texas trail drives during their heyday. 

His name was Frank Reaugh (pronounced “Ray”, 1860-1945) and his contemporaries called him the “Dean of Texas Painters.” 

In the 1880s Frank Reaugh began sketching Texas longhorns as they were before imported cattle were brought in to “improve” them.

In the early 1890s, Reaugh began using a camera to capture scenes so that no detail would escape his memory or his brush while he was at the easel.  

He loved to paint outdoors along our Texas rivers: the Brazos, the Red, the Concho. He saw how things were changing and was in a hurry to capture as much of the Texas range as he could before it was fenced-in, overgrazed, and plowed under.

Frank Reaugh in His Studio 

One writer told how Reaugh was able to become so familiar with longhorn cattle, their moods, attitudes, expressions: 

“The lands surrounding his early prairie home in north Texas were filled with big, active, long-horned steers brought up from the stock ranches of south Texas to fatten. Many of them had never seen a man on foot before.  

Naturally, they were interested in anything unusual taking place. This curiosity greatly helped Reaugh to study them, for when he would go on the prairie to paint, all the cattle in sight would come to investigate on the run to within 50 or 75 feet of him, suddenly stopping to gaze in wonder.  

At any movement they would all stampede away to one side, circling around and coming again to view from another angle.”

In His Natural Habitat 

No artist was more in love with the land and he put it into words as beautifully as he did into paint. 

"I like to be where the skies are unstained by dust and smoke, where the trees are untrimmed and where the wild flowers grow. I like the brilliant sunlight, and the far distance. I like the opalescent color of the plains. It is the beauty of the great Southwest as God has made it that I love to paint." 

An article about Frank Reaugh once reported: 

“Before catching just the attitude he wished in these creatures of the plains, the artist made thousands of sketches and [his painting] represents 30 years of observation and work.” 

We hope you will agree that this work illustrate that dedication and that it deserves a place on your wall where your friends and family will admire it.