As a young girl, Augusta Isabella Corson witnessed the raw reality of the frontier. Cattle drives, fierce blizzards, country weddings, and prairie fires all became the vibrant subjects of the paintings she would create throughout her nearly 90 years.
Homeschooled by her mother, a former teacher, Augusta was a self-taught artist, who closely observed life in far-west Oklahoma—on a homestead at the mouth of Turkey Creek on the Washita River near present Durham, OK, in Roger Mills County. She drew on whatever materials she had on hand, painting on limestone rocks, crockery plates, and scrap building materials. When she was lucky, she used precious paper sent by her maternal uncle, a professor in California who encouraged her talent.
At age 24, she married James Metcalf. Just two years later, he deserted her.
Augusta was left with a newborn son, caring for her widowed mother and a demanding farm and ranch operation that required immense determination and a strong back. Augusta continued to perform the ranch operations…raising cattle, horses, and hunting dogs, stringing fence wire, planting, harvesting, roping and branding and then cooking evening meals on her wood stove. She also welcomed all forms of free-roaming wildlife, which became childhood companions for her son, Howard.
She took on her new role with a defiance you could see in her written signature. To declare her independence, she permanently added an ‘e’ to the end of her husband’s name. From then on, she was Augusta Metcalfe.
Her artwork first reached the public in 1909, when a magazine published her ink sketches of two-family dogs. Those simple drawings launched a lifetime of recognition. She was known for her detailed and authentic depictions of ranch and farm life on the plains and prairie of western Oklahoma. Eventually, her work was exhibited in galleries from small Oklahoma towns all the way to New York City.
In 1950, her paintings of settler days were featured in Life Magazine. Honors followed, including her induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1968, and a posthumous induction into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1983. The Sagebrush Artist passed away in 1971 at 89 years old.
Today, her beloved Break ‘O Day Farm—nestled in the Black Kettle National Grasslands— just southeast of Durham, Oklahoma is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
It hosts thousands of visitors as schoolchildren, locals, and tourists travel to the upper Washita River country to glimpse a bygone era.
There, the historic homestead stands proudly alongside modern museum architecture, preserving the legacy of the woman who painted the spirit of the plains.
For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Lynn Boitano in Edmond, Oklahoma.
—
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio.
