Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy by Bill Wittliff (First ed.)
First Edition 2004, University of Texas Press
Book is in near fine condition. Dust jacket is torn on upper left corner and shows some creasing along the top due to long shelf wear. Everything else, spine, pages ect are in near fine condition.
In the early 1970s, noted Texas historian Joe Frantz offered Bill Wittliff a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to visit a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in the traditional ways. Drawn to this land-out-of-time again and again, Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. In the tradition of the great cowboy photographer Erwin Smith, Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the pages of this book. Here you'll find photographs that reveal the muscle, sweat, and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse to the saddle. Wittliff's evocative text recalls the humility and pride of men who knew their place in the world and filled it with quiet competence. John Graves brings his own memories of the vaqueros to the text, writing about the kinship between the vaquero and the cowboy and about how "the old, old ways," which Wittliff preserves in these "lovely and meaningful photographs," still tug at the modern imagination.
BILL WITTLIFF, of Austin, Texas, is a distinguished photographer and writer whose photographs have been exhibited in the United States and abroad. Cofounder, with his wife, Sally, of the highly regarded Encino Press, he is also a past president and Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters and a recent recipient of the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award. As a screen writer and producer, his credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, Lonesome Dove, and others.
First Edition 2004, University of Texas Press
Book is in near fine condition. Dust jacket is torn on upper left corner and shows some creasing along the top due to long shelf wear. Everything else, spine, pages ect are in near fine condition.
In the early 1970s, noted Texas historian Joe Frantz offered Bill Wittliff a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to visit a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in the traditional ways. Drawn to this land-out-of-time again and again, Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. In the tradition of the great cowboy photographer Erwin Smith, Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the pages of this book. Here you'll find photographs that reveal the muscle, sweat, and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse to the saddle. Wittliff's evocative text recalls the humility and pride of men who knew their place in the world and filled it with quiet competence. John Graves brings his own memories of the vaqueros to the text, writing about the kinship between the vaquero and the cowboy and about how "the old, old ways," which Wittliff preserves in these "lovely and meaningful photographs," still tug at the modern imagination.
BILL WITTLIFF, of Austin, Texas, is a distinguished photographer and writer whose photographs have been exhibited in the United States and abroad. Cofounder, with his wife, Sally, of the highly regarded Encino Press, he is also a past president and Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters and a recent recipient of the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award. As a screen writer and producer, his credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, Lonesome Dove, and others.
First Edition 2004, University of Texas Press
Book is in near fine condition. Dust jacket is torn on upper left corner and shows some creasing along the top due to long shelf wear. Everything else, spine, pages ect are in near fine condition.
In the early 1970s, noted Texas historian Joe Frantz offered Bill Wittliff a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to visit a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in the traditional ways. Drawn to this land-out-of-time again and again, Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. In the tradition of the great cowboy photographer Erwin Smith, Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the pages of this book. Here you'll find photographs that reveal the muscle, sweat, and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse to the saddle. Wittliff's evocative text recalls the humility and pride of men who knew their place in the world and filled it with quiet competence. John Graves brings his own memories of the vaqueros to the text, writing about the kinship between the vaquero and the cowboy and about how "the old, old ways," which Wittliff preserves in these "lovely and meaningful photographs," still tug at the modern imagination.
BILL WITTLIFF, of Austin, Texas, is a distinguished photographer and writer whose photographs have been exhibited in the United States and abroad. Cofounder, with his wife, Sally, of the highly regarded Encino Press, he is also a past president and Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters and a recent recipient of the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award. As a screen writer and producer, his credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, Lonesome Dove, and others.