~Joe Beeler: One Of The Founders Of Cowboy Artists of America~

FirstCover0861 Web — This is Joe Beeler’s first cover of 18 covers for Western Horseman, published in August 1961. As it reads in the cover summary, “Oklahoma artist Joe Beeler calls this painting A Very Happy Fella, and this young cowboy is just that. The weather is fine, the grass is good, the cattle are sleek, and his worries are few. As he rides, he whistles a tune and sharpens his roping arm by spot-looping fence posts and clumps of grass. He leads the life he loves – and he loves the life he leads.”

~Joe Beeler~

Location: (Born) Joplin, Missouri

1931 December 25th – April 26, 2006

Joe Beeler grew up in Joplin, Missouri and as a child he would draw anything and everything. He continued his passion at Kansas State Teachers College before being accepted at and attending the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, CA. After College, Beeler worked as an illustrator for the University of Oklahoma Press. Life as a full-time artist was difficult at first, but Beeler was recognized for his excellence during his life. A one-man show at the Gilcrease Museum in 1960 helped to launch his career. in 1962, he and his family moved to Sedona, AZ were he died from a heartattack while helping friends move and brand cattle.

In 1965, Joe Beeler and several other artists specializing in western and cowboy subject matter started the Cowboy Artists of America, an organization that has done more than perhaps any other to popularize and legitimize western art among a new generation of American art collectors.

His work has been displayed in almost every significant western museum, including the Wollorod Museum, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Montana Historical Society, the Charles M. Russell Museum, the Heard Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Institute of Texas Cultures.