Winded

At the time Winded was painted, William Elling Gollings had fond memories of working for the FUF Horse Outfit in Montana. As he later recounted in 1907, he was “not a cowboy, strictly speaking. I was what they call a ‘tiger,’ or a filly chaser because my work was not punching cows, but roping and breaking horses for the F.U.F. horse outfit on the Yellowstone.” (quoted in “From Bronco Buster To Artist,” The Detroit News Tribune, December 29, 1907, p. 2) Gollings first worked for various ranches from as early as 1900 to 1903. There he would also draw and paint pictures and give them away as gifts. (W. T. Ward, G.L. Temple, Gollings, More of the Story, Billings, Montana, 2009, p. 21)

Though Winded is an early work in the career of the artist, it shows Gollings’s strong and unparalleled understanding of the West. Gollings witnessed the last days of the open range and gained first-hand frontier life experience much like fellow painter Charles M. Russell. Winded is a strong work for its period in the artist’s career.

Gary Temple's recent book is Gollings, A Record of Happenings. We are grateful to him for his assistance in preparing the catalogue entry for this work.