Harold Dow Bugbee
Encyclopedia
Harold Dow Bugbee was an American
Western
artist
, illustrator
, painter
, and curator
of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
in Canyon, Texas
. Bugbee sought with considerable success to become the dominant artist of the Texas South Plains
, as his role model, Charles M. Russell of Montana
, accordingly sketched life of the northern Great Plains
.
, to Charles H. Bugbee and the former Grace L. Dow. In 1914, the family moved to the Texas Panhandle
at the suggestion of a cousin, cattleman T.S. Bugbee, and established a ranch
near Clarendon
, the seat of Donley County
east of Amarillo
. As a youth, Bugbee began sketching the multiple facets of ranch life hoping to preserve for posterity a rapidly-vanishing way of life. His own experiences offered keen insight into ranch living in the Panhandle. Bugbee graduated from Clarendon High School in 1917 and attended then Methodist-affiliated Clarendon College
, since a public community college
. In 1918, he enrolled at Texas A&M University
at College Station
.
Bugbee spent many summers at the Taos art colony
in Taos, New Mexico
, where Bert Geer Phillips urged him to attend the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines
, to study under the portrait painter Charles Atherton Cumming, who had established the art department at the University of Iowa
in Iowa City
. In 1921, he completed in two years a four-year curriculum at the Cumming school. In annual trips to Taos, Bugbee painted with W. Herbert Dunton
, Leon Gaspard, Frank Hoffman, and Ralph Meyers. He often went camping
in the Rockies
to get a close-up view of nature.
in 1921. His early patron was Ernest O. Thompson
(1892–1966), a hotel
owner, Amarillo mayor
and, later, long-serving member of the Texas Railroad Commission. Thompson commissioned fourteen oil paintings for the Longhorn Room of his prestigious Amarillo Hotel. He also sponsored Bugbee's first large art showing. In 1942, Thompson authorized Bugbee to paint eleven mural
s for the Tascosa Room of his Herring Hotel. Bugbee sold paintings to both ranchers and western art collectors. He also sketched Christmas card
designs available internationally.
In 1933, Bugbee began illustrating pen and ink sketches for books, magazine
s such as Ranch Romances, Western Stories, Country Gentleman, and Field and Stream, and also historical editions of local and regional newspaper
s. He also illustrated such trade publications as The Shamrock and thirty-four issues of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Review. Starting in 1936, with the publication of Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman, a biography of legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight
, Bugbee began an enduring association with West Texas historian
J. Evetts Haley
. He also did the illustrations for Willie N. Lewis' Between Sun and the Sod, S. Omar Barker's Songs of the Saddleman., and James R. Gober's Cowboy Justice: Tale of a Texas Lawman. During this period, Bugbee exhibited his work in Clarendon and other Texas cities, as well as in Kansas City, Missouri
, Chicago
, Denver
, and New York City
. He was a popular fixture too at the Tri-State Fair (Texas, Oklahoma
and New Mexico
) held annually in Amarillo.
In 1951, Bugbee became the art curator for the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society. This part-time position, which he retained until his death, pemitted him to devote much of his time to painting. Another artist featured at Panhandle-Plains is Frank Reaugh
(1860–1945), an Illinois
native, who painted scenes similar to those adopted by Bugbee. Bugbee sold or donated more than 230 paintings, drawings, and prints to the society's museum in Canyon, the seat of Randall County south of Amarillo. Bugbee completed twenty-two murals on Indian
life and ranching for the museum, the greatest of which is The Cattleman (1934), underwritten with a grant from the Federal Arts Project of the New Deal
. His trail-driving scene of Texas cattleman R. B. Masterson, painted on wood panels, hangs in the Texas Hall of State in Dallas
.
.
In 1935, Bugbee married the former Katherine Patrick (1904–1991); they divorced, and she died in Los Angeles
. In 1961, Bugbee married the former Olive Freda Vandruff (1908–2003), the daughter of Ross Elliott Vandruff and the former Mayme L. Buskirk. Olive, an artist in her own right whose clients included U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
and Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe
of Uvalde
, did not remarry. She lived thereafter, and died at the age of ninety-four, on the Harold Dow Bugbee Ranch in Clarendon. Bugbee died in Clarendon at the age of sixty-two, forty years before Olive's passing. The estate, valued at $1 million, was donated on Olive's death to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Olive left the ranch largely as she found it when she moved there in 1961.
Bugbee exhibited in 1929 at Dalhart
, the seat of Dallam County in the northwestern Panhandle, in Amarillo (1930, 1931, and 1938), in Abilene (1931), the University of Texas Centennial Exposition in Austin
(1936), the Fort Worth
Frontier Exposition (1936), and the West Texas Art Exhibition at Fort Worth (1939). His work was featured in exhibitions at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in 1953, 1961, and, posthumously, in 1970, 1987, and 1994. In 1990, the museum unveiled a reconstruction of Bugbee's studio. His exhibits were presented in 1992 at the Nita Stewart Haley Library at Midland
and in 1993 at the Cattleman's Museum, 1301 West 7th Street in Fort Worth. There is also a Bugbee exhibit at the Saints' Roost Museum
in Clarendon.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, and curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum is a history museum on the campus of West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, U.S.A., a small city south of Amarillo. The museum's contents are owned and controlled by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, while West Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M...
in Canyon, Texas
Canyon, Texas
Canyon is a city in Randall County, Texas, United States. The population was 12,875 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Randall County. It is the home of West Texas A&M University and Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Palo Duro Canyon State Park is some twelve miles east of Canyon...
. Bugbee sought with considerable success to become the dominant artist of the Texas South Plains
South Plains
South Plains is a vernacular term that refers to a region in West Texas consisting of the portion of the Llano Estacado extending south of the Texas Panhandle, centered at Lubbock. While prominent in the area of petroleum production, the South Plains is mainly an agricultural region, producing a...
, as his role model, Charles M. Russell of Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, accordingly sketched life of the northern Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
.
Early years and education
Bugbee was born in Lexington, MassachusettsLexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
, to Charles H. Bugbee and the former Grace L. Dow. In 1914, the family moved to the Texas Panhandle
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
at the suggestion of a cousin, cattleman T.S. Bugbee, and established a ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
near Clarendon
Clarendon, Texas
Clarendon is a city in Donley County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,974 at the 2000 census. The county seat of Donley County, Clarendon is located on United States Highway 287 in the Texas Panhandle some sixty miles east of Amarillo. It was established in 1878 by Methodist clergyman L.H...
, the seat of Donley County
Donley County, Texas
Donley County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000, its population was 3,828. It is named for Stockton P. Donley, a frontier lawyer. Its county seat is Clarendon....
east of Amarillo
Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo is the 14th-largest city, by population, in the state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The population was 190,695 at the 2010 census...
. As a youth, Bugbee began sketching the multiple facets of ranch life hoping to preserve for posterity a rapidly-vanishing way of life. His own experiences offered keen insight into ranch living in the Panhandle. Bugbee graduated from Clarendon High School in 1917 and attended then Methodist-affiliated Clarendon College
Clarendon College (Texas)
Clarendon College is a community college located in Clarendon, the seat of Donley County in the Texas Panhandle. The college operates branch campuses in Pampa and Childress....
, since a public community college
Community college
A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries.-Australia:Community colleges carry on the tradition of adult education, which was established in Australia around mid 19th century when evening classes were held to help adults...
. In 1918, he enrolled at Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
at College Station
College Station, Texas
College Station is a city in Brazos County, Texas, situated in East Central Texas in the heart of the Brazos Valley. The city is located within the most populated region of Texas, near three of the 10 largest cities in the United States - Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio...
.
Bugbee spent many summers at the Taos art colony
Taos art colony
The Taos art colony is an art colony founded in Taos, New Mexico by artists attracted by the rich culture of the Taos Pueblo and beautiful landscape. Hispanic craftsmanship of furniture, tin work and more played a role in creating a multicultural tradition of art work in the area.In 1898 a visit...
in Taos, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...
, where Bert Geer Phillips urged him to attend the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
, to study under the portrait painter Charles Atherton Cumming, who had established the art department at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
in Iowa City
Iowa City, Iowa
Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, State of Iowa. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of about 67,862, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and home to the University of Iowa...
. In 1921, he completed in two years a four-year curriculum at the Cumming school. In annual trips to Taos, Bugbee painted with W. Herbert Dunton
W. Herbert Dunton
William Herbert "Buck" Dunton was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He is noted for paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico, and the American Southwest.-Early life and education:...
, Leon Gaspard, Frank Hoffman, and Ralph Meyers. He often went camping
Camping
Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants leave urban areas, their home region, or civilization and enjoy nature while spending one or several nights outdoors, usually at a campsite. Camping may involve the use of a tent, caravan, motorhome, cabin, a primitive structure, or no...
in the Rockies
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
to get a close-up view of nature.
Artistic career
Bugbee returned to West TexasWest Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
in 1921. His early patron was Ernest O. Thompson
Ernest O. Thompson
Ernest Othmer Thompson was a general in the United States Army during World War I, a mayor of Amarillo, Texas, an attorney, a businessman , and a 32-year member of the Texas Railroad Commission. He was recognized as a world authority on petroleum and natural gas production and conservation...
(1892–1966), a hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
owner, Amarillo mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
and, later, long-serving member of the Texas Railroad Commission. Thompson commissioned fourteen oil paintings for the Longhorn Room of his prestigious Amarillo Hotel. He also sponsored Bugbee's first large art showing. In 1942, Thompson authorized Bugbee to paint eleven mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
s for the Tascosa Room of his Herring Hotel. Bugbee sold paintings to both ranchers and western art collectors. He also sketched Christmas card
Christmas card
A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas and holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during the weeks preceding Christmas Day by many people in Western...
designs available internationally.
In 1933, Bugbee began illustrating pen and ink sketches for books, magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s such as Ranch Romances, Western Stories, Country Gentleman, and Field and Stream, and also historical editions of local and regional newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s. He also illustrated such trade publications as The Shamrock and thirty-four issues of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Review. Starting in 1936, with the publication of Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman, a biography of legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight
Charles Goodnight
Charles Goodnight, also known as Charlie Goodnight , was a cattle rancher in the American West, perhaps the best known rancher in Texas. He is sometimes known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle." Essayist and historian J...
, Bugbee began an enduring association with West Texas historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
J. Evetts Haley
J. Evetts Haley
James Evetts Haley, Sr., usually known as J. Evetts Haley , was a Texas-born political activist and historian who wrote multiple works on the American West, including an enduring biography of legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight...
. He also did the illustrations for Willie N. Lewis' Between Sun and the Sod, S. Omar Barker's Songs of the Saddleman., and James R. Gober's Cowboy Justice: Tale of a Texas Lawman. During this period, Bugbee exhibited his work in Clarendon and other Texas cities, as well as in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Denver
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was a popular fixture too at the Tri-State Fair (Texas, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
and New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
) held annually in Amarillo.
Frank Reaugh
Charles Franklin Reaugh , known as Frank Reagh, was an artist, photographer, inventor, patron of the arts, and teacher, who was called the "Dean of Texas Painters". He devoted his career to the visual documentation in pastel and paint, portraying the vast, still unsettled regions of the Great...
(1860–1945), an Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
native, who painted scenes similar to those adopted by Bugbee. Bugbee sold or donated more than 230 paintings, drawings, and prints to the society's museum in Canyon, the seat of Randall County south of Amarillo. Bugbee completed twenty-two murals on Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
life and ranching for the museum, the greatest of which is The Cattleman (1934), underwritten with a grant from the Federal Arts Project of the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. His trail-driving scene of Texas cattleman R. B. Masterson, painted on wood panels, hangs in the Texas Hall of State in Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
Military and family life
In 1942, Bugbee at forty-one, was drafted into the armed forces, but he was discharged after a year because of health problems. He painted three murals for Amarillo Army Air Field in 1943; two of the three are in the National Museum of American Art, a part of the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
In 1935, Bugbee married the former Katherine Patrick (1904–1991); they divorced, and she died in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. In 1961, Bugbee married the former Olive Freda Vandruff (1908–2003), the daughter of Ross Elliott Vandruff and the former Mayme L. Buskirk. Olive, an artist in her own right whose clients included U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
and Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe
Dolph Briscoe
Dolph Briscoe, Jr. was a Uvalde, Texas rancher and businessman who was the 41st Governor of Texas between 1973 and 1979....
of Uvalde
Uvalde, Texas
Uvalde is a city in and the county seat of Uvalde County, Texas, United States. The population was 14,929 at the 2000 census.Uvalde was founded by Reading Wood Black in 1853 as the town of Encina. In 1856, when the county was organized, the town was renamed Uvalde for Spanish governor Juan de...
, did not remarry. She lived thereafter, and died at the age of ninety-four, on the Harold Dow Bugbee Ranch in Clarendon. Bugbee died in Clarendon at the age of sixty-two, forty years before Olive's passing. The estate, valued at $1 million, was donated on Olive's death to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Olive left the ranch largely as she found it when she moved there in 1961.
Bugbee exhibited in 1929 at Dalhart
Dalhart, Texas
Dalhart is a city in Dallam and Hartley counties in the U.S. state of Texas, and the county seat of Dallam County. The population was 7,237 at the 2000 census. Founded in 1901, Dalhart is named for its location on the border of Dallam and Hartley counties. Dalhart sits at the intersection of U.S....
, the seat of Dallam County in the northwestern Panhandle, in Amarillo (1930, 1931, and 1938), in Abilene (1931), the University of Texas Centennial Exposition in Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
(1936), the Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
Frontier Exposition (1936), and the West Texas Art Exhibition at Fort Worth (1939). His work was featured in exhibitions at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in 1953, 1961, and, posthumously, in 1970, 1987, and 1994. In 1990, the museum unveiled a reconstruction of Bugbee's studio. His exhibits were presented in 1992 at the Nita Stewart Haley Library at Midland
Midland, Texas
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States, on the Southern Plains of the state's western area. A small portion of the city extends into Martin County. As of 2010, the population of Midland was 111,147. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas...
and in 1993 at the Cattleman's Museum, 1301 West 7th Street in Fort Worth. There is also a Bugbee exhibit at the Saints' Roost Museum
Saints' Roost Museum
The Saints' Roost Museum in Clarendon, Texas, United States, features heirlooms from Panhandle ranches, farms, and businesses as well as a renovated railroad depot and a collection of materials from the Red River War. The unusual name of the museum is derived from Clarendon having been established...
in Clarendon.