Olaf Wieghorst (April 30, 1899 in Viborg, Denmark – April 27, 1988 in California, United States) was a painter of the American West in the vein of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell.Wieghorst emigrated to the United States from Denmark in 1918 and lived the rest of his life there.He spent his working career on mounted patrol with the U.S. Cavalry, was part of a campaign that chased Pancho Villa back across the border and the New York City Police Department Mounted Division, with occasional interludes as a wrangler on ranches in the western states. Wherever he went, he sketched and painted the Western culture he loved, often selling his work as calendar and magazine illustrations (such as Zane Grey's Western Magazine and Hoofs and Horns, an honor he shared with other cowboy artists such as Dan Muller).In 1945, Wieghorst eventually settled in El Cajon, San Diego County, California and spent the rest of his life there working on his art. Many of his works can be found on display at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum in El Cajon, California (a San Diego suburb).
Horses have been my companion under nearly all possible conditions. I have frozen at night in subzero weather. Ridden across the desert in some of the hottest days on record. Starved with them and hunted for water with them longer than I care to remember. But besides all the aches and broken bones, I have no regrets!
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Fact
1
As a painter of the Old West genre art, his paintings hang in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene Kansas.
2
After arriving in America, he joined the army, was posted to a cavalry unit on the US/Mexican border, and took part in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign that crossed the border into Mexico to try to capture Mexican bandit leader Pancho Villa after his attack on an American town in New Mexico.
3
He served for years with the New York City Mounted Police.
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Worked in bronze statutes, usually of horses or old west subjects.
5
Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1992.
$400,000
