White Man's West

The west of the artist Ray Strang, whose paintings are reproduced in these pages, is the west beyond where the paved roads end, far out where the dusty roads and trails. begin. It is the land that has not changed too much with the years. There is sunlight and distance, shimmering horizons, and cloud-filled skies resting on purple mountain ranges. Here the rider and hishorse are dominant figures in the landscape.The scenes that Ray Strang paints today in his studio in Tucson might have been painted fifty years ago; they could be painted as well fifty years from now, if the discerning artist who comes along then has the eye to see, the heart to understand, the skill to record. That, Ray Strang has. He succeeds admirably in catching the color, the loneliness, the simple unchanging life of the west. His west is of yesterday, of today, of tomorrow.... R.C.