W.H.D. Koerner was one of the most prolific artist illustrators in the early 20th century.
While his career spanned many subjects, he produced hundreds of drawings and paintings of Western scenes.
Whitney Western Art Museum Curator Assistant Ashlea Espinal said the museum has more than 40 of his works.
“The majority of them, I would say, feature women, and that wasn’t commonplace amongst his contemporaries. It wasn’t very commonplace amongst the artists of the generation previously, like[ Frederic] Remington and [Charles] Russell,” she said.
Three of Koerner’s paintings that illustrated the 1926 novel “The Painted Stallion” by Hal G. Evarts feature one of the main characters: Millie Powers.
“Those three paintings are really just a prime example of how Koerner really pulled out the female characters in the stories that he was illustrating and really made them active characters within it,” Espinal said.
More than 900 artifacts from Koerner’s artist studio are also part of the Whitney’s collection. His Stetson hat and paint palette are currently on display.
