Old Blue

LITHOGRAPH
Old Blue, 1941, brush and ink illustration from The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie
© Catherine Lea Weeks
Print measures 25½” x 18″
 
When artist Tom Lea met writer J. Frank Dobie in 1937, he told him his books spoke with the voice of the land he desired to paint. Thus began a friendship and a collaboration, with Tom Lea doing the illustrations for several of Dobie’s books.
One was The Longhorns, in which Dobie wrote of the lead steer, Old Blue:
“Blue must have known the North Star, he coursed so unswervingly”