Late painter’s Wyoming scenes find home in book

21 Oct 2021


From 1984 to 1990 artist David G. Paulley, a largely self-taught painter, collaborated with the Wyoming State Historical Society on a series of images depicting highlights in Wyoming history, culture and industry in anticipation of the state’s 1990 centennial celebration.

This fall the fundraising arm of the Wyoming State Historical Society published a full-color book featuring the work, with a foreword written by Wyoming historian Rick Ewig that explains the volume’s conception and content.

After introducing Paulley and its historical narrator Dr. Jeremy M. Johnston, who serves at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody and is the managing editor of the papers of William F. Cody, the book opens with “Whoop Up, Legends in the Canyon,” a 1988 painting sponsored by Harold and Bonnie Jane Kester. It foreshadows changes to come on the landscape as two Plains Indians examine petroglyphs in Whoop-Up Canyon, located west of the Black Hills.

Continue reading here.