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LOT 139
Documented Historic Tucson, Arizona Shipped Factory Engraved
First Generation Colt Single Action Army Revolver with Pearl
Grips and Inscription Attributed to Cowboy Artist Jack van
Ryder - Serial no. 349951, 45 Long Colt cal., 4 3/4 inch round bbl.,
nickel finish, pearl grips. Colt Single Action Army revolvers are among
the most desirable of all American firearms. The Single Action Army
itself is arguably the most iconic handgun in history, and 357,800 were
manufactured prior to World War II. However, though many of the most
famous SAAs were engraved, using the most liberal statistics, only 4,500
pre-war Colt Single Action Army revolvers were factory engraved. This
revolver is deeply linked to the West where the SAA made its mark in
history as it was shipped to Tucson, Arizona, in 1926. It certainly would
have made for stunning status symbol carried at the hip of a rancher
or wandering cowboy. Continuing with its western ties is the fact that
a previous owner identified the revolver to the estate of cowboy artist
Jack van Ryder (1899-1967). The back strap is inscribed with the name
“JACK.”
Van Ryder can be seen as a jack of all trades with talents that knew no
bounds. Outside his body of artistic work that captured the frontier and
cowboy lifestyle that continue to shape our romantic notions of the
Southwest, he was a cowboy himself, a map maker, soldier, rancher, and
Hollywood set designer. He was born in Continental and died in Amado,
Arizona, just outside Tucson where this revolver was shipped in 1926.
During World War I he enlisted in the U.S. Army under the false name of
John Remer and birthplace of Canada and was assigned to the cavalry.
After the war he roamed the continent from Canada to Mexico meeting
artisans along the way who encouraged him to pursue his passion for
painting and drawing. One of these artisans was Charlie Russell who
gave van Ryder his first set of paints. Van Ryder’s first one man show
occurred in 1928 in New York, a major accomplishment for a self-taught
artist. In total he held six major exhibits in New York. His early works
generally captured the landscape of Flagstaff, Arizona. He partnered
with General Motors Vice President Charles Steward in 1931 to buy a
ranch at Cape Verde. Over the next few years he worked the ranch in
the fall and winter, painted in Arizona in the spring, and summered in
the East. In 1936, he was awarded the Guild Hall Prize in Easthampton,
Long Island. He worked on murals for the Museum of Natural History
that depicted the Southwest. His style, as one commentator put it,
“was delicate and precise, a kind of hyper-realism in which the finest
details of the landscape and flora of the Arizona desert were tended to
with great effort. Rendered in a range of pastel-tinged hues, Jack van
Ryder’s pieces are serene and vaguely haunting, with a strong dark-light
contrast conspiring to cast the foreground in stark relief.” He was well
known for his political activism and strong anti-New Deal views. When
World War II broke out he became a mechanic at the Consolidated
Aircraft Corporation plant in Tucson and later went east to work on Navy
submarines and joined the Civil Air Patrol as a pilot hunting for enemy
submarines off the East Coast. He returned to his beloved Arizona after
the war. Tragically, he died in 1967 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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