CIGARETTE CARD — ‘Wyatt Cassidy’.

Since consuming media like the ‘Red Dead Redemption’ franchise, and TV shows like ‘Yellowstone’ and ‘1883’, I became very interested in the Old West and its art and culture- specifically cigarette cards. In those days, when smoking was seen as medicinal and everybody did it, and there were collectables in the packs of smokes. The National Portrait Gallery says “Cigarette cards first emerged in the US in 1875. Cards issued by the US-based tobacco company Allen and Ginter depicted actresses, baseball players, Native American chiefs, and boxers. Becoming instantly popular, other tobacco companies in the US and UK quickly followed suit, soon making them a worldwide phenomena.”

I wanted to lean more into Red Dead Redemption’s style of having famous gunslingers on the cards, like Calamity Jane and Butch Cassidy. In this piece, I was commissioned to recreate the morally ambiguous lawman, Wyatt Cassidy. The client knew they wanted a half-body commission but they weren’t sure exactly what they wanted, so I suggested a cigarette card design. I had a lot of fun creating my first card, and jumped at the chance to do it again. I didn’t include the halftone on this piece, however, as it clashed with the darker tones in the piece and gave it a muddy finish.