Billy Schenck can’t draw, as he will tell you himself. “I was never a good draftsman,” he says. “I just can’t make stuff up and draw it from memory. I mean, I can draw cactus, I can draw trees, I can draw sagebrush—but hands, faces, horses? I have to use photographs.”
Schenck isn’t being self-deprecating; that’s not his style, as he will also tell you. “I knew by the time I was 24 that I was going to alter the course of Western art, and that’s exactly what I did. So how about that for humility?”
How does a guy who says he can’t draw alter the course of Western art and enjoy a storied 50-plus-year career as an artist and a collector? It’s an interesting story that involves the Vietnam War, “A Fistful of Dollars,” pop art, nude cowgirls, and the rodeo. As Schenck gears up for a career retrospective at the Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson, Arizona, from February 6 to March 28, it’s the perfect time for him to reminisce about all those twists in the road he took.
Read the full article in the January/February 2026 issue.
Enchanted Mesa
oil
30″ by 36″
Moonshot
oil
30″ by40″
