Buck McCain (Born 1943)

Buck McCain is a largely self-taught Western artist whose work reflects his upbringing as a fifth-generation cattle rancher in Southern California and his lifelong familiarity with the landscapes, people, and traditions of the American West. He studied pre-med and philosophy at the University of San Diego and Imperial Valley College and later attended the Instituto de Artes Plásticas at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, while his artistic development came primarily through independent study and years of painting. After beginning his career in oils in 1968, he spent nine years in New Mexico, where the region’s distinctive light influenced his paintings of cowboy life, Native Americans, landscapes, and classical nudes, further informed by a year of painting in Europe. His practice expanded into bronze sculpture in 1976, and he has pursued both painting and sculpture as complementary means of exploring timeless themes, emotions, and the mythology of the American West. McCain’s work has been featured in Southwest Art, Sculpture Review, Sunset, Western Horseman, The Equine Image, and Architectural Digest, and he received the prestigious Franklin Mint Gold Medal Award for painting in 1974, a significant turning point in his career.