Arts & Entertainment
Edward Borein: San Leandro Western Artist
Cattle drives in San Leandro? Yep, and this San Leandro Historical Society Column introduces artist Edward Borein, who as a boy in San Leandro was fascinated by those cattle drives. He would become an artist famous for capturing the vanishing west.
Born in San Leandro in 1872 (the year the city was incorporated), Edward Borein was the son of Alameda County Deputy Sheriff P. R. Borein. As a boy, he saw the last of the great cattle drives through San Leandro.
He was briefly a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, but soon left for the more physically demanding, outdoor life of the cowboy. Working on ranches in California and Mexico, he sketched from the saddle when he could. At night, he refined his vivid sketches of horses, cowboys, cattle, and scenery with pen and ink.
He set up his first art studio in Oakland in 1900 and worked as a staff artist for the San Francisco Call. In 1901, he and his Art Institute classmate Maynard Dixon explored and sketched the Sierra, Oregon, and Idaho.
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Borein then moved to New York. He gained increasing recognition for his etchings and watercolors. His illustrations were featured in magazines such as Sunset, Century, Harper’s, Collier’s, and Western World. Borein was branded the "cowpuncher artist" for his realistic Western images.
By 1921, Borein settled in Santa Barbara, where he lived until his death in 1945. He opened a studio in the El Paseo complex. According to biographer Harold Davidson, "By this time Borein was aware of what he was doing, and told his friends many times he was documenting the Old West as he had lived and seen it. Every detail of horse, rider, saddle and gear, longhorn, and Indian had to be right. There are many stories of some detail of an etching being challenged, but the artist remained adamant, and usually was proven correct."
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Most of this material came from the Santa Barbara History Musem website. For a view of some of Borein's vivid depictions of horse and rider, cattle and landscape in the vanishing west, see http://www.santabarbaramuseum.com/exh-edward-borein.html.
The public is invited to the next San Leandro Historical Society meeting on May 19 at 1:00 p.m. This free meeting is a "field trip" to the Little Shul, a historic building behind the Temple Beth Sholom at 642 Dolores Avenue in San Leandro. Rabbi Hoffman will provide a brief history of the Little Shul before the meeting. For more information, visit www.sanleandrohistory.org, email us at http://www.sanleandrohistory.org/contact, or call 510-969-0975.
