Bill Gollings: Lonesome Cowboy Artist

Bill Gollings: Lonesome Cowboy Artist If William E. Gollings (1878-1932), known to all as Bill, had been a country and western singer, he would have been a practitioner of what is known as the high lonesome. If Bill Gollings had been an Indian at a Pow... More

Bill Gollings: Lonesome Cowboy Artist If William E. Gollings (1878-1932), known to all as Bill, had been a country and western singer, he would have been a practitioner of what is known as the high lonesome. If Bill Gollings had been an Indian at a Pow Wow, his would have been the high voice of the brave that rises from the drumming and chanting. Golling is distinct, direct, independent, plaintive, but never defeated, not as long as he can sing about it. The best of Bill Gollings’s paintings, those that have nothing of the gun-for-hire illustration or commission about them, are songs, songs in the rhythms of the seasons, songs in the key of the lonesome cowboy, songs in the rhythms of Indian camps, songs in the key of the rapidly evaporating West. In Cheyenne Winter Camp the weariness of the woman bearing water to the camp is counterbalanced by the relief of the shaggy ponies who have come to the end of their day. They have waited their turn while the woman cut a hole in the ice. Less