Art Institute of Chicago

A Mexican Vaquero

Frederic Remington (American, 1861–1909)

Date

1890

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

New York

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

A trip to Mexico in 1889 provided Frederic Remington with a wealth of firsthand material for paintings and illustrations created later in his New York studio. Here Remington depicted a vaquero, a Mexican horseman similar to the cowboys of the American frontier. The figure sits astride his horse at an elevated position, his head and torso above the horizon, outlined by the pale blue sky behind him. Portraying the man with a direct gaze and his hand on the reins, Remington suggested that the vaquero was a fixture of the local terrain. The artist created a version of A Mexican Vaquero as a wood engraving, which appeared in Harper’s Monthly in 1891.

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