Robert E. Lee on His Horse

I keep on telling you about artworks commissioned by Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. (ex Buffalo and Company). And today’s artwork features General Robert E. Lee – a commander of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America. This is second time that I create a drawing featuring Robert E. Lee for this company but this time the drawing depicts Robert E. Lee on his horse called Traveller. The drawing is based on a well-known photo taken during the American Civil War.

General Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller

This drawing is based on the famous photo of Lee and his horse

I believe that the idea to add the Lee’s horse design to the collection of t-shirts from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. was prompted to guys from the company by the General’s letter to his wife’s cousin, Markie Williams, who wanted to paint a portrait of Traveller. The letter went like this:

If I was an artist like you, I would draw a true picture of Traveller; representing his fine proportions, muscular figure, deep chest, short back, strong haunches, flat legs, small head, broad forehead, delicate ears, quick eye, small feet, and black mane and tail. Such a picture would inspire a poet, whose genius could then depict his worth, and describe his endurance of toil, hunger, thirst, heat and cold; and the dangers and suffering through which he has passed. He could dilate upon his sagacity and affection, and his invariable response to every wish of his rider. He might even imagine his thoughts through the long night-marches and days of the battle through which he has passed. But I am no artist Markie, and can therefore only say he is a Confederate gray.

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Portrait of General George S. Patton

Portrait of General George S. Patton is my other contribution to the Heritage t-shirt series produced by Buffalo and Company.

George Smith Patton, Jr.

Well, the US army has always been one of the most powerful armed forces of the modern world. It is naturally that such military power scares many of those who confronts and hates America openly or covertly. You can hear a lot of hateful words and accusation being said against the USA military activities in today’s world. But laying politics (which is a very dirty business sometimes) aside and leaving nothing but dry facts, one cannot deny that the United States of America have managed to build the most powerful army within a relatively short span of country’s history. And I am sure that whatever other nations think about America and their armed forces, the majority of the US citizens have a lot of reasons to respect and be proud of their military history. George S. Patton had been one of the main contributors to the outstanding development of the United States Army, therefore Buffalo and Company included the General to their Hall of Fame to honor his name and deeds.

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Related posts:
Portrait of Harry S. Truman
Portrait of Winston Churchill
General Stonewall Jackson portrait
General Robert E. Lee

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Portrait of Adam Smith

Portrait of Adam Smith belongs to the serious of famous men portraits created by me for Buffalo and Company.

Adam Smith (social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy)

Have you ever wondered why the USA remains one of the most economically developed countries in the world? My strong belief is that the reason for a wonderful economical success of the United States was the wisdom of country’s first leaders who were greatly inspired by freedom and who had chosen and adapted economical theories which guaranteed freedom and equality of rights of each American citizen as much as it was possible within the bounds of the active legislation. Therefore it was not surprising that American intellectual leaders noticed and got interested in Adam Smith’s economic theory laid out in his “Wealth of Nations” in which he outlined the ideas of the so-called “laissez faire” philosophy. The phrase laissez faire is French and means "let do", i.e., when applied to Smith’s views, it is of paramount importance for the government not to seek to interfere in people’s economical activity unless it is an illegal business. It is now proved by the history that providing as much freedom for business as possible results in positive economical development of the country due to a sound competition and fair legislation.

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I do not want to say that Adam Smith’s economic theories are perfect as there is nothing perfect in this world. However one cannot deny that the ideas of Adam Smith laid the foundation of today’s economical success of the United States of America. No wonder that Buffalo and Company chose Adam Smith as one of the greatest men who they and their customers would honor by wearing t-shirts featuring my portrait of this famous economist.

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Portrait of John Wayne

John Wayne was not only an icon symbolizing American values and ideals he was also an actor whose characters in their majority exemplified the universal image of a rugged gentleman whose courage, appearance and actions set standards of masculinity. When Buffalo & Company organized a poll on their Facebook page in which their customers were asked to share their thoughts about what men should be honored for personifying classic values of manhood, it was not surprising that quite a few people voted for John Wayne. As a result I was commissioned to draw a portrait of John Wayne.

John Wayne aka Duke

There are some interesting facts about John Wayne which are especially curious to me as I was born in USSR. According to Wikipedia Joseph Stalin was a fan of John Wayne's movies, although Stalin had ordered to assassinate the actor as John Wayne was an ardent anti-communist with an incredible popularity in the USA. Stalin died before his order could be carried out and his successor personally rescinded the order. Another interesting fact is that there were not many Western movies made in the USA which penetrated the Iron Curtain and were shown in Soviet Union cinemas. However one of Wayne’s movies called “Stagecoach” ran in Soviet cinemas. In USSR the film was shown under the title “The Journey will be Dangerous”. It means that values and ideas depicted in John Wayne’s movies are rather universal and comprehensible not only by Americans.

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I can only imagine how extremely popular John Wayne was (and still is) in the USA. But there is a fact which tells me a lot about the actor’s popularity. It is a rare thing when a public location is named after an actor. However there are several public places named after John Wayne in the United States among which I can mention John Wayne Airport (Orange County, California) and John Wayne Elementary School (Brooklyn, New York). There is also John Wayne Cancer Institute founded by actor’s son to find the cure for the disease which had taken the movie star away from millions of his fans. Thus the name of John Wayne lives on to keep the memory of the great actor in a special place in American people’s hearts for many generations to come.

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