Description: This is a culturally significant and Amazing Vintage Hollywood Old Western KIRK DOUGLAS The BIG SKY Movie Painting, Oil on Masonite, which is the ORIGINAL conceptual painting that was utilized to make the movie poster for Howard Hawks's 1952 American Western film, The Big Sky, starring Kirk Douglas (1916 - 2020,) and Arthur Hunnicutt (1910 - 1979,) among others. This artwork depicts a shirtless and heroic Kirk Douglas as Jim Deakins, who fiercely holds a hand-axe in his right hand, and stands gigantically above a wide landscape, with hundreds of Native American warriors on horseback, attacking him and his comrades from every direction. In the distance, finely painted mountain peaks, green hills, and delicately rendered clouds can be seen. This artwork is not signed, and after many hours of research, I was unable to determine the artist. Perhaps you recognize the painter or their work? This is a monumental artwork, at approximately 35 x 65 inches (nearly 3 x 5 1/2 feet!) Good overall condition for decades of age and storage, with moderate - heavy scratches, edge wear, scuffing, and paint loss throughout (please see photos carefully.) PRICED TO SELL. Due to the large size, and heavy weight of this piece, S&H costs will be unavoidably high. However, Free Local Pickup from Los Angeles County, California is also an option. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About this Artwork: The Big Sky (film) The Big Sky is a 1952 American Western film produced and directed by Howard Hawks and written by Dudley Nichols, based on the novel of the same name by A.B. Guthrie Jr. The film does not have the same tragic ending as the book. The cast includes Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt and Arthur Hunnicutt, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Though not considered among Hawks's major achievements by most critics, the film was chosen by Jonathan Rosenbaum for his alternative list of the Top 100 American Films.PlotIn 1832, Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) is travelling in the Kentucky wilderness when he encounters an initially hostile Boone Caudill (Dewey Martin). However, they soon become good friends and head together to St. Louis on the Missouri River in search of Boone's uncle, Zeb Calloway (Arthur Hunnicutt). They find him when they are tossed in jail for brawling with fur traders of the Missouri River Company. When 'Frenchy' Jourdonnais (Steven Geray) comes to bail Zeb out, Zeb talks him into paying for Jim and Boone too.The two men join an expedition organised by Zeb and Frenchy, who owns a sailing barge called 'Mandan'. Taking about 30 other trappers with them, they begin to travel 2,000 miles (3,218.7 km) up the Missouri and into the Yellowstone River to seek trade with the Blackfoot Indians, in competition with the Missouri Fur Company. Zeb has brought along Teal Eye (Elizabeth Threatt), a pretty Blackfoot woman he had found several years earlier after she had escaped from an enemy tribe. She is the daughter of a chief and Zeb plans to return her to her family as a means of establishing trade with the tribe. On the journey, they encounter another Blackfoot that Zeb knows, Poordevil (Hank Worden); they take him along too. Later, Teal Eye falls into the river and is rescued from rapids by Boone.The Missouri Company knows about the threat to their monopoly. One day, it makes its move. A party led by Streak (Jim Davis) captures Teal Eye and tries to burn the boat, but Frenchy wakes up before the fire causes much damage. Poordevil tracks the enemy and Boone and Jim rescue the woman. Later the expedition puts in at a company trading post and leaves a warning not to interfere. A week later they repulse an attack by Crow Indians. Jim is separated from the group and shot in the leg. Boone, followed by Teal Eye and Poordevil, finds him, extracts the bullet and waits for his friend to heal. When they rejoin their band, they find Streak trying to buy the boat and the goods on it. Jim compares the bullet dug out of his leg with one of Streak's and finds them to be the same. Streak and his men are killed in the ensuing shootout.The expedition finally reaches the Blackfoot village and begins trading. Teal Eye then tells a very disappointed Jim that she loves him... like a brother. Boone follows her back to her teepee. When he emerges much later, he is surprised to find out he is now married. However, Teal Eye makes him buy her from her father, so that he will be free to leave her any time he wants to. With winter coming on, the men soon begin the long return boat trip and Boone goes with them, abandoning Teal Eye. This cools the earlier friendship between Boone and Jim, who confides to Zeb that unlike Boone he would not have left if Teal Eye had chosen him instead. Later that evening, however, Boone changes his mind and decides to return to Teal Eye, which pleases Jim greatly, and the two men remain friends as they finally go their separate ways. ReceptionFilm critic Manny Farber, writing in the September 27, 1952 issue of The Nation, offered this assessment of the picture: “The Big Sky shows a whiskey-laden keel boat being poled and pushed up the Missouri River. Cast with some amiably fearsome stars who act as if they have been coached by Andy Capp, and saddled with a talkative Western plot, this film is not up to the talents of its director, Howard Hawks."In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100. He'd later write, "part of what I treasure about this mysterious epic relates to the mysterious bonds that form between these two pals and a captured Blackfoot princess who speaks not a word of their language, or vice versa... the warm and utopian three-way understandings generated between this unlikely threesome, especially when they spend some time together apart from the other characters, now seem not only multicultural but also downright countercultural."To improve business, the film's running time was reduced from 140 minutes to 122 minutes for its general release.
Price: 6500 USD
Location: Orange, California
End Time: 2024-12-28T03:06:03.000Z
Shipping Cost: 100 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Size: Large
Signed: No
Period: Post-War (1940-1970)
Title: "The Big Sky"
Material: Oil, Masonite
Region of Origin: California, USA
Framing: Unframed
Subject: Actors, Animal Head, Billboard, Celebrities, Community Life, Cowboy, Equestrian, Figures, Forest, Horse, Hunting, Inspirational, Landscape, Men, Military, Monument, Silhouettes, States & Counties, Still Life
Type: Painting
Year of Production: 1952
Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
Item Height: 35 in
Theme: Advertising, Americana, Animals, Art, Cities & Towns, Conflicts & Wars, Continents & Countries, Cultures & Ethnicities, Exhibitions, History, Militaria, Movies, Nature, Patriotic, People, Portrait, Social History, Television, Theater, Topographical, Western
Style: Americana, Figurative Art, Illustration Art, Native American, Portraiture, Realism
Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)
Production Technique: Oil Painting
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Handmade: Yes
Item Width: 65 in
Time Period Produced: 1950-1959
