Tony Eubanks (American, b. 1939). Oil on canvas painting depicting a modern cowboy on his horse overseeing a cattle drive, 1981. Signed and dated along the lower right.

Lot Essay:
Tony Eubanks is an artist who started with an appetite for drawing, seeing anything as a potential 2-D subject. Watching his uncle and cousin draw war planes was an early source of visual inspiration for Eubanks. He looked to the world around him, documenting anything and everything in graphite. He began creating with oil paints at the age of seven. With a dream of becoming a cowboy, Eubanks enrolled in school in 1958 but shortly thereafter decided to pursue a career in art making, transferring to North Texas University. His work was realized at the Art Center in Los Angeles. He found work with several art agencies then moved into creating freelance illustration assignments for “Reader’s Digest”, “National Geographic”, “Time”, RCA, NBC and several other publishers. The mid-seventies saw Eubanks exhibiting western, landscape, and seascape paintings in Santa Fe galleries.

Travel to other countries encouraged a diverse range of subjects and was a source of inspiration for his own colorful, timeless, and charming appeals. Regularly shifting into new themes was the method Eubanks leaned into in order to stay interested. Another source of inspiration for Eubanks was the drama that early morning light and late daylight offer, often employing them in his paintings. Six years after creating “White Oatmeal,” he was awarded the coveted Prix de West Award at the National Academy of Western Art Show - an award that changed his life. That show also brought a win again in 2002 and 2007 with the Remington award. Additionally, he earned numerous awards from the Salmagundi Club of New York and the Copley Society of Boston.

Today Eubanks is represented in many well-known private and corporate collections, including the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He exhibits annually in the Prix de West Invitational in Oklahoma City, the "Quest For the West" Invitational show in Indianapolis, and the Northwest Rendezvous. He is a member of the Oil Painters of America and the Northwest Rendezvous. More recently, in 2016 at the Northwest Rendezvous in Helena, Montana and in 2018 Eubanks' work was shown at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles. Born in Texas, he still resides in the state today, with a body of artwork reflecting nearby subjects in figurative works of pueblo Native Indians and cowboys, along with western landscapes.
Sight; height: 29 1/4 in x width: 39 1/2 in. Framed; height: 38 in x width: 48 in. There are no tears or losses. There are a few areas that fluoresce under UV light; due to an uneven varnish, it seems likely that these are not restorations. There is a scuff measuring approx. 3 inches in length running horizontally along the backside of the horse. A few light scuffs along the lower half of the painting. Clean verso. Light wear to the frame.