Best known for his comic strip Red Ryder and Little Beaver, Fred Harman was also a noted painter of scenes of the American West.

He was born in St. Louis, Missouri and as an infant moved with his family to Pagosa Springs, Colorado where his father was a lawyer. He grew up on a ranch in Indian country where he associated with Ute, Apache, Navajo, and Paiute Indians, and as a child he spent much time sketching these people. As an adult, he traveled and painted throughout the country inhabited by them.

In 1916, he moved to Kansas City as a teen ager but returned regularly to Colorado to work as a cowboy and to serve in the National Guard during World War I. For about twenty years he worked both as a cowbo...