For more than forty years, Tom Ryan has painted the contemporary cowboy. His paintings capture a way of life unique to the time and place, yet universal to those on horseback who tend cattle. Tom was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1922, one of nine children. His father owned a stable, so young Tom was riding, and drawing horses, by the time he was 7. After high school, he attended the St. Louis School of Fine Art and served in the Coast Guard. After WW II, Tom studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and enrolled in the prestigious Art Student’s League in New York City. For the next eight years, he illustrated hundreds of magazines and book covers.