12. Farmer and Cowboy

Clifford Wight | two fresco panels | each 10 feet by 4 feet These two single figures pose almost like Byzantine icons on either side of a large window representing two dominant strands of California country life: the cowboy herding cattle and the farmer tending crops. The Will Rogers-style cowboy might be a self-portrait in the manner of Cezanne, with its face full of geometric planes. The farmer could be Ralph Stackpole, San Francisco sculptor. The artist camouflaged the "architectural accident" of a light switch in the trouser leg of the farmer's overalls.