Cowboys
- Paulie
- Sep 25, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 23, 2025
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George Quaintance (1902-1957)
What’s your favourite brand of cowboy? A little Mitski number? An Orville Peck for you? A pre-TB Arthur Morgan as a treat? One thing we can agree on, is that they can be very sexy indeed. Perhaps no other artist in the twentieth century understood this more than American artist George Quaintance.
Born in 1902, Quaintance grew up on a farm in rural Virginia as a closeted gay man. At 18, Quaintance would study at the Art Students League in New York City. Over the years though, the artist would wear many different hats before settling on the Stetson; as a hairdresser, photographer of the rich and famous and as a stage director for productions in his hometown.
It was in the twilight of his life that Quaintance’s art really took off. The Virginian had always had an affinity for the Wild West but struggled to fully connect with the - seemingly - heteronormative machismo inherent in the cowboy lifestyle. That was, until he unlocked the deeply homoerotic potential of a bunch of buff dudes doing buff shit in the desert unattended.
