Harold Winfield Scott - Illustrator - Article from Life magazine, June 29, 1942

[I was looking at some Western Story magazine covers and many I liked were done by H.W. Scott. I came across this article about him recently, and thought you might like to read it.]




Life Magazine, June 24, 1942 - Article about Harold Winfield Scott - Illustrator
WHILE MODELS POSE. SCOTT PAINTS STAGECOACH SCENE FROM HIS BIG MESSY PALETTE. MALE MODEL. BILL FRANK, HAS POSED FOR HIM 15 YEARS. LIVES ON SCOTT'S RANCH

HAROLD WINFIELD SCOTT IS A WHIRLWIND PAINTER OF ROOTIN’ TOOTIN’ COWBOYS

At Army camps and USO centers the most popular fiction today is detective stories and cowboy yarns. And the man who makes these rough, tough cowboys jump right off the page is Harold Winfield Scott, the world’s most prolific illustrator of Western magazines.

Scott puts on no airs of being a serious artist. Yet his slick cowboy art has the vitality and action that many a fancier artist lacks. Born in Montana 43 years ago, Scott says he learned to ride “anything that runs, walks or creeps.” He planned to be a pianist until he suffered two breaks in his right arm serving in the air force during World War 1. Now Scott has his own ranch in Croton Falls, N. Y. When he isn’t painting — Scott whips off at least one magazine cover a week — he and his two sons ride horseback, shoot, play cowboy in their ten-gallon hats.

Scott takes enormous pride in the accuracy of his art. For Texas scenes he ties his rope in a Texas “snub,’’ for rustling scenes he usually paints a steer on the left, because horses run faster on the right.