Wild West

Buffalo Bill Room Service At The Hotel Erma

William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was a soldier, hunter and showman. One of the most colorful figures of the American West, Buffalo Bill became famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. A little-known fact is that near the end of his life BuffaloBill managed the Hotel Erma in Wyoming for his daughter. Here, Buffalo Bill is shown on cotton stuffed with batting with a derogatory poem bye e cummings superimposed. The circular extension circumference is populated with Indian Head pennies and Buffalo nickels. It is topped with a young deer’s antlers.

Darling Lill About To Kill

Lillian Frances Smith was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter in Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, which eventually merged with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show where Lill competed with Annie Oakley. This piece shows a head-on picture of Lill aiming at a target and surrounded by targets. Small American flags hang from the construction as does a toy rifle.

Annie Oakley Little Miss Sure Shot

Annie Oakley’s most famous trick was being able to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground, while using a 22-caliber rifle, at 90 feet. Complimentary theater tickets are often called “Annie Oakleys” because they have holes punched into them to prevent them from being resold. This construction playfully reverses the situation turning the famous sharpshooter with medals on her chest into the target.

Annie Oakley II

The artist continues his targeted series of the Old West with his second homage to sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Oakley gained fame and renown in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show featuring such personalities as Frank Butler and Sitting Bull.

Shooting Gallery

As United States expansion reached westward, settlers, miners and railroad workers came into increasing conflict with native American tribes. These complex nomadic cultures strongly resisted U.S. settlements and land acquisition especially in the decades after the Civil War. In this work, the pipes and toy fishes symbolize a tragic carnival shooting gallery, one in which native Americans were often the targets of the U.S. Army and civilian settlers alike.