I was recently introduced to Ernie Morris via El Vaquero, a treasure of a book full of Morris’s drawings, paintings, and historic photos depicting the California vaquero’s tools and techniques. Morris, a third generation California cattleman and horseman, has also written the text, which includes a history of the California vaquero.

Born in 1927, in Kern County, CA, Morris is the great-grandson of Sam Jobe, a Pony Express rider, stagecoach driver, and personal friend of Buffalo Bill Cody. Sam’s mother, Nora, was the first non-Indian child born in the Carrizo Plains area of San Luis Obispo County.

Morris’s grandfather, from whom he learned much about the artistry of the vaquero, was Jesse Wilkinson. As a young man, Wilkinson rode rough stock and cowboyed for Miller & Lux, which owned over one million acres of cattle grazing land in California, Nevada and Oregon. Co-owner Henry Miller was reportedly the only person in the United States to ever own a million head of branded cattle on the range at one time. On one occasion, a team of 60 Miller & Lux vaqueros, with four wagons, roped and branded 15,000 two-year-old steers.

Jesse Wilkinson’s rawhide work came to be widely admired. In addition to cattlemen and buckaroos, he counted humorist Will Rogers and Western artist Ed Borein among his many clients. Today, his work can be found in museums and private collections around the world.

Ernie Morris, who works with a variety of media, including pen and ink, charcoal, oil, watercolor, acrylic, wood and clay, prides himself in creating authentic vaquero remembrances. His art and rawhide work have been featured in galleries, museums, and private collections, and he has published four books illustrated with his art.