Oil on canvas, signed lower right. Cowboy on horseback fleeing a shootout. Sight: 19.25" height, 13.25" width; frame: 28" height, 22" width Artist Bio: Arthur Leslie Ross, Jr. was born December 4, 1910 in West Orange, New Jersey. His father was also named Arthur Leslie Ross, of Scottish ancestry, and was a designer at a rug mill in Amsterdam, NY. His mother was J. Margaret Hoffman, of German ancestry. He had an older brother, Warren. His family called him "Let" and his friends called him "Joe." They lived at 58 Whittingham Place. After graduating from West Orange High School in June of 1928 he went to work at a printing company, The American Color Type Co. In 1929 he studied at the New York School of Fine Art, and from 1931 to 1934 he studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he crossed paths with H. W. Scott, Walter Baumhofer, Frederick Blakeslee, and Rudolph Belarski. In the Fall of 1934 he opened his own freelance art studio on East 63rd Street in NYC, and then later at West 67th Street. His first assignments were interior story illustrations for Mavericks and Bull's Eye Western Stories. He was soon painting cover illustrations for pulp magazines, such as All Sports, Blue Ribbon Western, Complete Cowboy Novel, Complete Northwest, Crack Detective, Dime Western, Exciting Sports, Popular Western, Real Western, Spy Stories, Sport Story, 10-Story Western, West, Western Aces, and Wild West Weekly.On April 5, 1937 he married Pearl Elizabeth Mather of Montclair, NJ. In 1939 they bought a five-acre property as a weekend home in Poughquag, New York, in Dutchess County. By 1941 he was doing freelance work for Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, and Paramount Studio.He was drafted and served in WW2 as the art director of the U.S. Training Aid Division at Fort Hood, Texas. His wife moved out west and lived at off-base housing and in 1944 their daughter, Carolyn, was born. After the war their property in Poughquaq, NY, became their year-round home. Working from his home art studio, he resumed his post-war pulp magazine career and painted covers for Action-Packed Western, Dynamic Science Fiction, Famous Western, Giant Western, Super Sports, West, Western Action, and Western Trails. In the 1950s he painted covers for paperback book companies, such as Bantam Books, Berkley Medallion Books, Gold Medal Books, Monarch Books, Perma Books, Pocketbooks, Popular Library, Pyramid Books, and Signet Books. He illustrated men's adventure magazines, such as Cavalier, Real, and Real For Men. He also worked for J. Walter Thompson Agency in NYC and he illustrated jobs for Boy's Life, Colliers, United States Shipping Line, and the Hollywood movie poster for The Bridge Over The River Kwai. He remains best known for his paintings created for cover illustrations for western pulp magazines.Source: Carolyn Ross, daughter