Michelangelo had his “David.” Leonardo da Vinci had his “Mona Lisa.” And Olaf Wieghorst had his horses.
“Just about everything he did included horses,” said Michael Bostwick, vice president of the Olaf Wieghorst Museum in El Cajon. “We had heard originally that every one of his paintings had a horse in it except for one, but we’ve kind of challenged that theory.”
The museum does include portraits and sketches without horses, but indeed there are enough equine-heavy artworks by Wieghorst, who lived in El Cajon from the mid-1940s until his death in 1988, to show how the rumor started.
In his day, Wieghorst was known as the Dean of Western Art, and the title likely is undisputed today. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan owned Wieghorst artwork, and his painting “Navajo Madonna” sold for $500,000 in 1982.
Jack Doherty, operations and business manager at the museum, said fans of Wieghorst come from across the country to see his paintings, sculptures, sketches and other items on display — although many people in El Cajon may not know the local treasure even exists.
“I think there’s some cultural change going on,” he said. “Olaf was kind of riding on the popularity of the Hollywood Western era, really from the 1950s to roughly the 1980s. Those were the things that made Olaf a major artist.
“As you get farther and farther away from the Hollywood era, you don’t have as many people that are focused on those kinds of scenes and the history and romance of the era.”
Yet there is something timeless about his artwork, as Bostwick said while examining some of Wieghorst’s paintings.
“If you notice the clouds, not just the main subject of the Native Americans on the horses, but the surrounding landscape including the skies and everything,” he said. “Then look at the ground with the rocks and shrubs and all that kind of stuff. It’s very realistic. It’s like a good, or a better, photograph.”
Besides shifting interests in artwork, another reason people may not know of the museum is its limited hours, which have been cut back since the pandemic because of a lack of volunteers. Admission is free, but it is only open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays.
Doherty said that could change in the near future because volunteers now being trained will allow the museum to open on Sundays.
Born in Viborg, Denmark, in 1899, Wieghorst as a child performed as a “miniature acrobat” for the Danish Circus, according to the museum’s website, which also notes that he got hooked on horses when sneaking into a Wild West circus at 12.
He immigrated to the United States in 1918, drawn to the land that inspired his Western artwork. He was a member of the U.S. Calvary and the New York Police Department’s mounted patrol before retiring and moving to California.
With Hollywood westerns popular at the time, it’s no surprise that John Wayne became a fan and even a friend to Wieghorst, who appeared in small roles in the Duke’s movies “McLintock!” and “El Dorado.” A corner in the museum’s front room has a life-sized cutout of Wayne and other Hollywood memorabilia, including a still photo of Wieghorst as he appeared in one of the films.
“From what we heard, he had parties of 700 people, mostly Hollywood people,” Bostwick said. “John Wayne, Mickey Rooney, all were good friends of his.”
The museum has a visiting artists program, fundraising events and a gift shop. The building itself is owned by the museum, and its outdoor grounds, which include a succulent garden and Wieghorst’s original house, are on land owned by the city and rented for a nominal fee.
Visitors who happen to be at the museum when Bostwick is on duty may get an extra lesson in botany while touring the garden. Before joining the museum, Bostwick worked 40 years in the San Diego Zoo’s horticulture department.
