A Look At The Old West Through The Paintings Of Fred Oldfield As Explained By His Daughter Joella Oldfield (Part 2) Swimming Upstream Radio Show podcast

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A Look at the old west through the paintings of Fred Oldfield as explained by his daughter Joella Oldfield (Part 2)

1d ago 27:07

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This is the second in the series of paintings of the old west as it was left. The paintings were by acclaimed cowboy artist Fred Oldfield and acclaimed because they so obviously were lived by the man who painted them. This is my favorite, notes Dorothy Wilhelm. Although the photo of Fred comes from Eastern Washington, everyone knows the feeling when the sky literally seems to close down around you.

This description of Fred's life comes from the Fred Oldfield Western Heritage Center:

Fred Oldfield had a passion and appreciation for life that is reflected in his work. His colors are bold and powerful like the beauty he saw in his surroundings.

Fred was born in Alfalfa, Washington in 1918 and grew up on the Yakima Indian Reservation near Toppenish. He never knew a permanent home during his early years and held many jobs as he was growing up. Most often, he worked as a cowhand. He remembers nights on the prairie so cold that he would literally set tumbleweeds on fire, to lie down in the warm spot they made as they burned. “You could sleep for about two hours before the cold woke you up” he’d recall. His collectors are drawn to these stories and early experiences that he tells with his brush and canvas.

He did not realize that he had potential as an artist until he painted a flower on a bunkhouse wall when he was about 17. He also painted a frame around it and a nail to hang it on “and it really looked like a thistle.” Fred sold his first painting in Alaska, working on discarded 9″x 9″ linoleum tiles, they were sold for him by his landlady, a woman with an incredible sales ability. The lady, whom he laughingly describes as his first agent, was able to get as much as $10 each for his work–a fortune in 1941.

When the war started, he headed back to the States to join the Army, painting patriotic scenes on leather jackets worn by fellow travelers on the boat. It was while he was in the Army that he really got excited about painting and began to think he might make a living as an artist. After the war, he attended art school in Seattle under the G.I. Bill and began painting murals on walls in Alaska, Canada and throughout the Northwest.

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