A. Kelly Pruitt – Artist, Writer, Cowboy Sage, Visionary
February 9, 1924 – February 15, 2009
To be a cowboy was A. Kelly Pruitt's childhood dream; a dream that he realized early in his life. He started breaking horses when he was twelve and helped bring many a trailherd from Mexico across the Rio Grande at Presidio, Texas where he and his family lived during his early years.
His first paintings were done on scraps of rainbow sandstone found on the Boquillas Ranch, where he worked, in Arizona, near the Grand Canyon. It was there that he was discovered by a man who ran the El Travarre Hotel and Kelly's painting career was launched. That was the humble beginning of his success and renown as one of the premier Western painters of our time.
Kelly's work is graced by a natural talent and draws from the creative river of the Great Spirit, unhampered by formal art training and the opinions of professors. He painted what he knew. He loved and it shows in his work; it is fresh, immediate, and, like Kelly, full of the intensity and spirit from which it derives.
During the fifty years he painted and sculpted, his personality and popularity took him to countries where many a cowboy would have felt out of place. His collectors number in the thousands and the lives of those he touches are mirrored in beauty and complexity, the vastness and simplicity that Kelly so honestly captured in his paintings and books.
Kelly, like his work, was untrammeled by conformity. For most of his life, he preferred to live under the stars, in the endless expanse of nature sheltered only by a tipi or a gypsy wagon.
Pruitt's Vision for La Junta
In February 2009, Kelly invited a group of his friends to camp with him at La Junta Farm to discuss his vision of creating a non-profit organization whose mission would combine art, history, conservation, sustainable building and sustainable agriculture. He called it "a foundation for a better world." The La Junta Heritage Center is the result of that vision and those discussions.
The Board members of the La Junta Heritage Center invite you to learn more about the plans for the Center, and to consider joining us in making A. Kelly Pruitt's vision a reality.
