Charlie Dye

Charlie Dye was exposed to the life of a cowboy from an early age in his hometown of Cañon City, Colorado. He began working as a cowboy in his teens and continued to do so until he left at 21 to study in Chicago at the Art Institute and then the American Academy of Art. From there he went to New York in 1936 and began a successful career as an illustrator. He was a highly skilled draftsman who paid great attention to detail. Dye did not make a foray into western art until the 1950s, when he gave up illustration and moved back to Colorado. With his firsthand experience of the subject matter, he quickly found success as a painter and the working cowboy was one of his favorite subjects. Dye made Sedona, Arizona, his permanent home in 1962 and founded the Cowboy Artists of America with friends and fellow artists Joe Beeler and John Hampton in 1965.