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“It’s not the Old West of the 1890s but Crook County, Wyoming in the early 1990s,” says artist Bob Coronato. “The people and the ways of this area are very much the same as they always were. I was drawn to the area because it’s the closest you can get to seeing the frontier the way it was. The big towns are hundreds of miles apart and the little towns are the glue that holds the frontier together. Brandings here are still a community effort and the ranchers still work the same way they did a hundred years ago.
“The ranches these days are disappearing. It is sad, but as the ranches disappear, the cowboys also disappear one by one. As the land gets developed the cowboy lifestyle fades fast. I was lucky to get a chance not only to see it at the end, but to take part.” Bob Coronato’s "When This Weather Quits . . ." was featured in the 2008 Coeur D’Alene Art Auction in Reno, Nevada.
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“We are at a clash of two different times: the traditional ‘cowboy’n’ ways are
being overridden by the modern, quicker technologies. This is the focus of my
paintings,” Coronato says. “I try to document moments in time that show the
ways of a fading lifestyle that so many people have admired.” The subjects of
Coronato's work remind people that there is still a remote, free West. The
question the artist is asked most often is, “Do they really do that?” Coronato
reflects, “Yes, they do - but not for much longer. The ‘West’ is alive, it’s
just hiding in small corners of our country, trying to desperately hang on and
not be forgotten.”
Coronato lives half the year in remote, eastern Wyoming and half the year in
southern California. Upon graduating from Otis/Parsons Art School, he moved to
Wyoming to pursue a career as a cowboy artist. His work has been shown at the
High Plains Museum, the Coeur D'Alene Art Auction and in 1995 won Best of Show
as the Pendleton Round Up Art Show.
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