Sales at the first Cowboy Hall of Fame show were modest, but the turnout was good, and those who came were enthusiastic about what they saw. Everyone involved deemed the affair a success, and the museum extended an invitation for a second show the following year, which the group eagerly accepted. Everything was happening in a hurry.
It had barely been a year since the genesis in Sedona, and the dust had not yet settled from the Oklahoma City show. But galleries across the Southwest, from Santa Fe to Scottsdale, were rushing to represent the new wave of Western art. Dallas and Denver soon followed suite, and paintings of cowboys and Indians even began to appear in such venerable New York venues as Grand Central Gallery. Applications for Cowboy Artists membership continued to come in, about equally divided between homegrown, boot-wearing Western types and others who had earned their spurs in commercial art and illustration.
By the time the second show opened in Oklahoma City in the spring of 1967, four additional members were exhibiting, and another eight were added the next year. By the fifth annual exhibition in 1970, the membership had leveled off at thirty, and sales from the show were hovering around the $100,000 mark. Business had been good for the rest of the year as well and was not limited to the enhanced buying frenzy of opening nights in Oklahoma City. The demand for the best works of the Cowboy Artists soon exceeded the supply. Galleries combed the countryside out West in search of new names to offer an eager audience that was ready to buy. But it was the Cowboy Artists who had the real clout with collectors, and their annual exhibition became the benchmark for both quality and value. They had become a cultural and commercial force to be reckoned with.
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