E. William Gollings

Elling William Gollings was born on March 17, 1878, in Pierce City, then part of the Idaho Territory. He spent part of his childhood with his grandmother in Michigan, then completed eighth-grade schooling in Chicago, though the specific school is not documented. As a young man he traveled west and worked as a cowboy in Wyoming and the Dakotas, painting informally, reportedly beginning with a mail order paint set. His early paintings drew enough attention that he was admitted to art school in Chicago, and around 1905 to 1906 he received a scholarship to study composition at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. One museum source names the same period of study as two terms at the Art Institute of Chicago, likely an institutional-name variance rather than separate additional schooling. No academic degree is documented for him from any institution.

Gollings returned west and, by about 1909, had settled in Sheridan, Wyoming, where he opened a studio and remained based for the rest of his life. He worked primarily in oil, producing etchings as well, depicting cowboys, ranch life, and Native American subjects drawn from his own experience of the northern Plains. He died on April 16, 1932, in Sheridan, Wyoming, at age 54, reportedly following a heart attack.

Gollings is discussed in Western art literature primarily as an authentic chronicler of cowboy and ranch life, valued for having worked as a cowboy himself before turning to painting rather than approaching the subject as a visitor. Institutional recognition, reflected in his presence in the collections of Gilcrease Museum, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, has reinforced his standing as a significant early painter of the American West. The Brinton Museum's continuing exhibition program built around its own Gollings holdings, most recently the 2026 show William Gollings: Collected Treasures, points to sustained institutional interest in his work. No verbatim, attributable critical assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile.

Gollings's market is driven by specialist Western art auctions rather than the broader contemporary or Impressionist markets. His all-time auction record is Cheyenne Winter Camp, an oil painting that sold for USD 642,500 against a USD 300,000 to 500,000 estimate at a Coeur d'Alene Art Auction sale held at the Peppermill Hotel Resort in Reno, Nevada, on July 23, 2016. The auction house's own results also list Turning the Lead at USD 327,250 and The Red Man's Directions at USD 297,500, though exact sale dates for those two lots are not documented on the auction house's public results page. His works also appear regularly, at more modest prices, at Coeur d'Alene Art Auction and through Western art dealers such as Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Owings Gallery, and Nygard Gallery.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Gollings, and no gallery or estate currently holds exclusive representation of his work; instead, paintings circulate through the secondary market via Western art specialists and major regional auction houses. His market is thin and top-heavy: a single work, Cheyenne Winter Camp, accounts for his auction record, which means broad market statistics should be treated with caution given the small number of high-value transactions. Because attribution depends on provenance and dealer expertise rather than a formal certification body, buyers should prioritize documented ownership history and consult specialist Western art dealers or the museums that hold comparable works.