In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, railroad companies paid artists to traverse the American West, hoping to fuel interest in passenger travel on their rail lines. The images they captured — used in advertisements and hung in train depots — helped to spur westward expansion.

More than 100 years later, interest in “cowboy art” is higher than ever, with Western art auctions reporting record-breaking sales. 

Joni Kinsey, a professor of art history at the University of Iowa, spoke with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about the Western American art industry then and now. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. 

Kai Ryssdal: Could you describe the scene for me at one of these Western art auctions? What’s the vibe?

Joni Kinsey: The vibe is really rather overwhelming. It’s generally a big, convention-center-size hall with art all around the walls and a bar in each corner. People in very fancy Western wear — dripping with turquoise and so forth, big belt buckles. Several of them have these giant runways down the center. It’s almost like a big fashion show, only people are buying the things that are trotting out in front of them.

Ryssdal: So talk to me about those things that are being trotted out — the art itself. I hope this isn’t derogatory, but the phrase I came upon in my research for this interview is “cowboy art,” and that seems to me is not an accepted term of art. 

Kinsey: Well, it depends on who you’re talking to. In the sort of Eastern art world, the world art world, “cowboy art” is definitely not smiled upon. It’s considered to be very… kitsch? But in the Western world — and it’s not just cowboys, Native Americans are very frequent images and subjects, but landscapes in particular also are very prized — these are the basic subjects that you see at these Western art sales.

Ryssdal: Where did this art come from, historically? I mean, obviously, the expansion of the American West, Manifest Destiny, all of that. Are the roots there?

Kinsey: Absolutely. Artists have been going west since, not quite Lewis and Clark, but almost back in the 1820s, the first Eastern artists went west. And there have been several sorts of variations on the trends over the 20th century and into the 21st, but the basic premise is still there — the romance of the Old West and all of the sort of mythological dimensions of that legacy.

Ryssdal: Talk to me for a second about the railroads. [They were] material, obviously, in the expansion of the West, but also in the development of Western art.

Kinsey: Absolutely. The story of the railroads and art is absolutely fascinating. Like many businesses, you know, images sell. A number of major railroads — most notably the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, better known as the Santa Fe, but also the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific — were working actively with artists to get them to ride their trains out to premier destinations, especially the new national parks. So they became essentially pioneers of marketing and branding, and they built up some really major collections.

Ryssdal: I read actually, that Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which is the successor to Atchison, Topeka — they’ve got like, 700 pieces in their archives.

Kinsey: Oh, it’s more than that. But yeah, it’s a remarkable collection.

Ryssdal: So if, if it was the railroads that were prospering and profiting off of this art back in the day, who’s profiting now?

Kinsey: All kinds of people are profiting now. Certainly the buyers that buy and later sell that work. Corporate businesses are also buying this stuff, especially in the West. And, you know, you can think about how else these works of art function. They add to people’s thinking about region and about the West, in particular — for good or for bad — and there are an awful lot of people invested in those ideas.

Ryssdal: Superquick, since you’re the historian of American art here in this conversation, what do you think of this kind of art? Do you like it?

Kinsey: I have mixed feelings about it, in some ways. I am a historian of traditional historic American Western art, and even that, in some ways, is problematic in regard to the way in which Native peoples, for example, not only were treated, but depicted, the ways in which landscape itself was commodified and exploited. The more recent stuff is a little bit more problematic because it perpetuates some of those issues. But at the same time, it’s a lively, extremely burgeoning realm of the industry, and it’s kind of remarkable for its staying power.

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