Throughout the history of Western art, the notion of authenticity has remained a central concern of art critics, historians, and artists alike. Frank Tenney Johnson keenly grasped the importance of blending veracity and poetry in his art. Throughout his career, he strived to paint authentic, compelling images of an Old West born of history and myth.

Johnson was born and raised on a farm near the historic Overland Trail, which crossed the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa, a few miles to the north. As a child, he heard old-timers’ stories of the trail when it still teemed with long lines of prairie schooners, stagecoaches, and herds of long-horned cattle. The tales brought the West alive for the boy and etched indelible impressions in his imagination.

Johnson’s family had left the farm and was living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1891 when he began to study with Milwaukee artist Richard Lorenz, who had developed his skill as a painter of horses while studying in Europe, a specialty he passed along to Johnson. A former Texas Ranger, Lorenz also passed along fascinating stories of the Wild West, reinforcing Johnson’s determination to “go out West and soak up its atmosphere.”

When he received a small inheritance in 1895, Borein hightailed it, not to the West, but to New York City to study drawing at the Art Students League. He worked intensely until his money ran out, and then returned to Milwaukee. In 1902, he again went to New York, this time to establish a studio and to take classes at the New York School of Art with the two greatest American art teachers of their time, William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. Years later, Johnson downplayed his formal training, even claiming that he didn’t “get enough art education” to hurt him. He did, however, get enough “art education” to refine his natural talent, develop his artistic skill, and deeply influence his approach to creating art.

Both Chase and Henri had studied in Europe and favored impressionist-influenced realism. But more important than any particular style of painting was their insistence that artists must know their subjects intimately, must find their own way, and must learn from others. Johnson took to heart Henri’s conviction that the most successful artists were “absorbed in the civilization” they portrayed in their work. By then he was already considering himself a Western artist, and he grew even more determined to make up for the fact that he was not a born Westerner and had neither lived the cowboy life nor witnessed skirmishes during the Indian Wars.

His chance came in 1904 when Field and Stream magazine hired him to illustrate an article and paid his way west to gather material. Johnson took advantage of this opportunity to remain five months in Colorado and New Mexico. He worked as a cowboy on a Colorado ranch, then went to New Mexico and Arizona where he was fascinated by the Navajos he saw “at their games, racing and selling horses . . . and dancing in the moonlight.” Navajos and Navajo customs remained favorite subjects.

Beginning in 1906, Johnson made regular trips west, particularly to the Southwest and California. It was his usual practice to sketch and photograph his subjects and to paint landscapes en plein air while in the West then complete the paintings in his New York studio. Cowboys (Dust Stained Riders) is an outstanding example of this practice. Not only did he thrive in the artistic milieu of the city, but it also was headquarters to magazine and book publishers who gave Johnson ample work as an illustrator. He enjoyed a successful career for more than twenty years, illustrating magazine articles and western novels whose authors were grateful for his talent. One author who wrote to thank him for his drawings declared that “originality is a jewel and you have it.”

Although he had exhibited at the prestigious National Academy of Design since 1918 and showed his work successfully in commercial galleries, it wasn’t until 1925 that he was able to quit illustrating in order to paint full time. Freed from the bonds of the New York publishing business, he gravitated west, eventually buying a home in southern California. From then on he divided his time between the two coasts.

Johnson’s career continued its upward course. Elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1929, in 1937, he was elected a National Academician, a singular achievement for a Western artist. Tragically, Johnson died on New Years Day 1939, only days after contracting spinal meningitis from a woman he kissed at a holiday party. The loss felt by his family, friends, and patrons was tempered by the fact that at the time of his death Johnson was at the pinnacle of his career, his passionate love for the West undiminished.