Putting on a Good Show

Illustration © SEPS. Licensing by Curtis Licensing
Artist:

William Henry Dethlef Koerner

(American, 1878 - 1938)

Putting on a Good Show

Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1927
Dimensions:
28 × 40 in. (71.1 × 101.6 cm)
Accession number: 92.12.1
Copyright: Illustration © SEPS. Licensing by Curtis Licensing
Label Copy:
German-born artist W. H. D. Koerner grew up in Clinton, Iowa, working his way up as a newspaper illustrator and art editor. He eventually sought formal training at the Art Students League in New York. Later he became a student of Howard Pyle in Wilmington, where he was a classmate of Harvey Dunn, Frank Schoonover, and N. C. Wyeth. Koerner earned a reputation as an illustrator of Western scenes, such as Putting on a Good Show, which was a commission from the Saturday Evening Post. The image set the scene for the first installment of Mary Roberts Reinhart’s novel Lost Ecstasy. The budding romance of a New York socialite and a Wyoming ranch hand is alluded to in the painting. The novel later was transformed into the 1931 film I Take This Woman, starring Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper.
On view