Robert Wesley Amick

Early Life and Education

Born on October 15, 1879, in a log cabin on Currant Creek near Cañon City, Colorado, Robert Wesley Amick (1879–1969) grew up amid the raw spectacle of the American West, the sixth child of pioneer parents whose ranching life imprinted indelible scenes of cowboys and frontier vitality. From boyhood, he sketched pen-and-ink drawings of this milieu, foreshadowing his lifelong devotion to its romance. Initially pursuing law at the University of Pennsylvania before transferring to Yale University, he earned a degree in 1903 while auditing art classes. Drawn irresistibly to painting, Amick relocated to New York City, where private instruction under anatomist George Bridgman and enrollment at the Art Students League honed his technical command, culminating in his 1909 graduation.

Key Life Events and Historical Context

Amick briefly practiced law in Cleveland, Ohio, for two years post-graduation, yet the era's burgeoning demand for illustrative realism amid Progressive Era optimism propelled him toward art. By 1909, he established a studio at 63 Washington Square South, illustrating for Scribner’s, Harper’s Bazaar, Redbook, and others during the lead-up to World War I, though his romantic western motifs distanced him from wartime grit. Marriage to Alice Rowe in 1916 yielded daughter Katherine; the family relocated to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1926, where he founded the Art Society of Old Greenwich in 1927, presiding for seventeen years. The Great Depression tempered commercial output, but reproductions of his works sustained visibility. In 1928, he executed a mural for Cañon City's Municipal Building amid postwar prosperity. From 1944 to 1962, he taught in Greenwich public schools, painting local portraits through the 1940s and 1950s, while World War II's end revived equine subjects like his 1942 Man o’ War portrait. He died in Old Greenwich in 1969, buried beside his parents in Cañon City’s Greenwood Pioneer Cemetery.

Influencers

Bridgman’s emphasis on figure construction and dynamic posing sharpened Amick’s rendering of cowboys and horses, elevating his illustrations from decorative to structurally vital. The Woodstock art colony, where Amick maintained a summer studio from 1915, further immersed him in communal exchange, subtly inflecting his palette with regional impressionistic warmth during his shift to fine art.

Artistic Career

Launching as a magazine illustrator in 1909, Amick swiftly ascended with his western vignettes gracing national publications. Between 1921 and 1929, twelve paintings—vivid evocations of frontier life—were lithographed by the U.S. Printing and Lithograph Company for schools and retailers, cementing commercial traction. Consolidating his Old Greenwich studio in 1930 marked a pivot to portraiture. Posthumously, Texas collector Roy C. Coffee amassed the preeminent holdings starting in 1967, underscoring Amick’s market endurance.

Artistic Style and Themes

Amick’s oeuvre fused Arts and Crafts precision with romantic exuberance, deploying saturated hues, crisp light-shadow contrasts, and kinetic compositions to animate the vanishing West: azure skies over jagged peaks, sinewy horses bearing weathered riders. Recurring motifs—Pueblo weavers, enchanted canyons, spectral divides—evoke nostalgic idylls, evolving from illustrative linearity to painterly breadth in later equine and portrait works. Exemplars include *The Indian Weaver*, *Phantom Canyon*, and *The Great Divide*, each distilling frontier poetry through meticulous draftsmanship and luminous tonality.

Exhibitions and Representation

Amick’s institutional footprint emerged at Douthitt Gallery in New York in 1938, where western canvases drew discerning eyes. A solo presentation followed at Allen Galleries in Houston in 1945, spotlighting his maturing portraiture. Posthumously, Roy C. Coffee’s 1970 traveling survey—inaugurated at Cañon City’s Municipal Museum—circulated through Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, affirming his regional gravitas. The Art Society of Old Greenwich perpetuates his estate through dedicated programming.

Prizes and Awards

Election to the Society of Illustrators in 1913 crowned Amick’s illustrative prowess, granting access to elite networks that bolstered his transition to painting.

Little-known fact

At age 75, Amick personally restored his own 1928 mural adorning Cañon City’s Municipal Building—now housed at the Royal Gorge Museum & History Centre—demonstrating unwavering fidelity to his origins long after relocating eastward.

Influences & Legacy

Amick’s vivid western tableaux resonated within midcentury cowboy painters and regional realists, subtly imprinting equine dynamism on subsequent genre practitioners like those chronicling postwar ranch life. His lithographic editions democratized frontier imagery for American classrooms, enriching the romantic canon of Western Art alongside Arts and Crafts print traditions. Through Coffee’s singular archive and enduring society honors, Amick’s visions preserve the West’s mythic pulse, anchoring private and institutional collections as poignant testaments to a receding epoch.