Wallace Simpson Art

Celebrate the work of this Texas cowboy, western artist and poet, one of the Texas artists featured in our online art gallery.

A Short Biography:

William Wallace Simpson was only twelve years old when, in 1892, he moved with his family to Childress, Texas. There, they bought land which became known as the LS Ranch. After graduating from Childress High School, Wallace worked on numerous ranches in the area, including the Matador Ranch, OX Ranch, 3-Bar Ranch and the Buckle L Ranch. By day, he worked on these ranches and tracked down horse and cattle thieves. At night, he drew pictures of ranch life and animals. One summer, while working the Buckle L Ranch near Childress, he met his wife to be: Effie Fields of Decatur, Texas. He was asked to pick her up by buckboard from the train station to visit her relative who owned the Buckle L Ranch, Mr. N.B. Fields.

Wallace moved to Fort Worth with his wife and worked at the Fort Worth Livestock Exchange (nicknamed "the Wall Street of the West") weighing, selling and delivering cattle to buyer locations by train. He also designed stationery for Davis & Hamm Livestock Commission Company. His first full time employment as an artist was with Peerless Press in Oklahoma City for $ 3.00 per week. Moving to El Paso sometime around 1914, Wallace became an artist for the El Paso Times. Around 1920, Wallace became Cowboy Artist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. For ten years he created numerous sketches and oil paintings for commissions which were featured in newspaper articles. In 1930, Wallace moved to the Dallas Morning News, and worked as both a writer and an artist.

Wallace moved to Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1936 and lived on land his parents had purchased from Chief Billy Sapulpa when it was still Indian territory. He became Director of the Sapulpa Art Gallery and held that position until around 1942. Before moving back to Fort Worth in 1952, he worked several years as an artist for Liberty Glass Mills in Sapulpa. Wallace Simpson passed away on December 17, 1956. Copies of his artwork are on display at the Childress County Heritage Museum and the North Fort Worth Stockyards Museum.

These open edition giclee-on-canvas prints from our online Texas art gallery capture some of the flavor of Texas ranch hand life, not just imagined, but actually experienced by Wallace. For more information on this Texas artist and his Texas ranch artwork, click on any picture below.