Creator Details
Growing up in Bonham, Texas, Erwin Smith knew he wanted to be a cowboy and an artist. The era of great trail drives was ending, and he was determined to document the open-range lifestyle before it disappeared completely. Smith gained experience by working on ranches and studying painting and sculpting at art schools in Chicago and Boston before he realized that the photographs he used as preliminary studies were works of art themselves. Between 1905 and the mid-1920s, he photographed ranch work and life in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, producing some of the best-known images of early 20th-century cowboy activities. The Carter holds about 150 prints by Smith, many gifted by Smith’s half-sister, Mary Alice Pettis, as well as 2,000 negatives on permanent deposit from the Library of Congress.
Artworks
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A cowboy staking his horse to some brush. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.072
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A cowboy standing in the doorway of a half dugout, line camp on the LS range. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.136
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A cowboy taking a workout with a rearing bronc. Bar Diamond Bar Ranch, Texas., 1906-1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.188
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A cowboy watching his string of horses. Matador Ranch, Texas., 1905-1910
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.003
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A cowboy with a good cutting horse working yearlings out of a herd. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.148
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A cowboy [Erwin E. Smith] posing with his lariat while his horse stands behind him at the photographer's home in Bonham, Texas., 1905-1910
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.571
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A cowboy [Erwin E. Smith] standing in the doorway of a half dugout, line camp on the LS range., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.086
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A cowboy [Frank Smith] branding a calf in the open country on the Cross-B Ranch. Cross-B Ranch, Texas., 1909
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.439
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A cowboy [Frank Smith] building a fire to brand a calf in the open country on the Cross-B Ranch. Cross-B Ranch, Texas., 1909
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.499
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A cowboy [LS foreman Zack T. Burkett] watering his horse in a shallow stream. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.085
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A cowboy [LS foreman Zack T. Burkett] watering his horse in a shallow stream. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.606
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A cowboy's complete equipment, saddle, bedroll, boots, spurs, hat, lariat and gun. There appears to be a cowboy buried in the covers. Taken in the cattle country of the Southwest., 1908-1912
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.867
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A cowgirl in riding skirt and some of the Matador boys mounted in front of the bunkhouse. Matador Ranch, Texas., 1908
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.126
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A cowgirl joins the roundup near the Huachuca Mountains. The OR was a part of the holdings of the Greene Cattle Company with headquarters at Hereford, Arizona. OR Ranch, Arizona., 1909
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.447
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A cowgirl on her mount taken somewhere in the Southwest around the turn of the century., 1908-1912
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.106
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A cowgirl rodeo contestant [possibly Mattie Goff Newcombe] doffing her hat at the rodeo grounds somewhere in the Southwest., 1925
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.913
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A cowpuncher and his mount. LS Ranch, Texas., 1907
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.087
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A cowpuncher coming out fast on a pitching horse somewhere in the Southwest., 1920-1930
Erwin E. Smith
Gelatin dry plate negative
LC.S6.935
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A cowpuncher cutting a cow out of the herd on roundup grounds somewhere in the Southwest., 1905-1910
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S611.703
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A cowpuncher helping the cook set up camp in a new location. Spur Ranch, Texas., ca. 1908-1909
Erwin E. Smith
Nitrate negative
LC.S59.623