Who Creates a Legend?

As I began developing Windows into the West, I started thinking more about how legends are made. Why do we remember Annie Oakley, for instance, and how did she become the person we know and love today? I believe our concept of these legendary figures is connected to the objects they carried, the images that shaped their public identity, and the artists and makers behind those images and objects.

I’m approaching Windows into the West through four layers: the central figure, the symbols and objects, the art and imagery, and the artists and makers. Annie Oakley makes these connections easy to see.

The Central Figure

For me, the person is always the foundation. A portrait gives us a place to enter the story.

In this photo, Annie Oakley stands with several firearms associated with her work as an exhibition shooter. The photograph shows us her face, but it also raises questions. Why was she dressed and posed this way? Which details show us who she was as a person, and which were chosen to create her public image?¹

The Symbols and Objects

Oakley’s gold-plated Stevens-Gould No. 37 pistol is both a firearm and a work of decorative art. Made around 1891, it is engraved and fitted with mother-of-pearl grips. It was one of three presentation guns given to her by her husband and manager, Frank Butler.²

An object like this can tell us about function, craftsmanship, identity, taste, and public performance. A saddle, firearm, article of clothing, flower, or piece of silverwork should not appear in a painting simply because it looks Western. I want to know why it belongs and what it adds to the story.

The Art and Imagery

A Buffalo Bill’s Wild West poster presents a different version of Annie Oakley. It advertises her as the “peerless lady wing-shot,” costumed, armed, and performing for an audience.

The poster was designed to promote a show, not to provide a neutral historical record. But images like this helped determine how Oakley would be recognized and remembered.³

Photographs, posters, paintings, illustrations, advertisements, and newspapers did more than record the West. They helped turn real people into public figures and, eventually, into legends.

The Artists and Makers

The final photograph shows Jessie Tarbox Beals standing on a ladder to photograph the U.S. Mail Clerks parade at the 1904 World’s Fair. She is not directly connected to the Annie Oakley images shown here, but the photograph makes the fourth layer visible: behind every surviving image is someone who chose what we would see.⁴

In Summary

A photographer chooses the pose, setting, angle, and moment. An illustrator decides what to emphasize. A publisher determines which image will circulate. Engravers, saddle makers, leather carvers, and silversmiths also create objects that become part of a person’s identity and the historical record.

These four layers will not appear literally or equally in every painting I create for Windows into the West. They are a way for me to research a subject and understand the larger story around them.

The first chapter of Windows into the West is a place where all four layers began to overlap in a very visible way. Working life became performance, familiar objects became symbols, and artists and promoters helped turn individuals into legends.

That is where the next story begins.

Kim Randleas

¹ J. Wood, Cabinet Photograph of Annie Oakley, New York, date unknown. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

² Presentation Stevens-Gould Model No. 37 Pistol, J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company, c. 1891. Gold-plated and engraved steel with mother-of-pearl grips. Autry Museum of the American West, Object No. 86.23.2.2.

³ Miss Annie Oakley, the Peerless Lady Wing-Shot, Buffalo Bill's Wild West advertising poster, second half of the 1880s. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

⁴ Keystone View Company, U.S. Mail Clerks Parade, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904. Photograph showing Jessie Tarbox Beals photographing from a stepladder. St. Louis Public Library.

Image Credits

The Central Figure: Annie Oakley, cabinet photograph by J. Wood, New York, date unknown. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

The Symbols and Objects: Annie Oakley's Presentation Stevens-Gould No. 37 Pistol, c. 1891. Collection of the Autry Museum of the American West. Photograph by Mark Mauno. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

The Art and Imagery: Miss Annie Oakley, the Peerless Lady Wing-Shot, Buffalo Bill's Wild West advertising poster, second half of the 1880s. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

The Artists and Makers: Jessie Tarbox Beals Photographing the U.S. Mail Clerks Parade, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904. Keystone View Company. Courtesy of the St. Louis Public Library.