Edward Borein

Born in San Leandro, California, Edward Borein became one of the most popular artists of western scene painting, equally adept at ink drawing, watercolor, and etching.

He was raised in San Leandro, a western cow town, in a family where his father was a county politician. Edward had many childhood memories of herded cattle and their cowboys, which he began sketching at the age of five. He was educated in the Oakland, California schools, and at the age of 17 began working on a ranch near Oakland and then drifted and sketched as a working cowboy throughout the Southwest, Mexico, and Guatemala.

In 1899, Borein visited Arizona while returning from Mexico. By 1902, he was a successful illustrator in San Francisco for the San Francisco Call, and in 1907 to enhance his illustration skills, went to New York to learn etching techniques. There he enrolled in the Art Students League and was a student of Child Hassam. In the theatre district, he opened a studio that became a gathering place for ‘lonesome’ westerners such as Charles Russell, Will Rogers, Olaf Seltzer and Oscar Borg.