Photographer Barbara Van Cleve showcases the lives of women on the ranch in Booth Western Art Museum exhibit

September 27th, 2023

Mary Bailey Davis, Spring Branding a Fine Two-Legged Loop on the CS Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico in 1986. (Photo credit: Barbara Van Cleve.)

Cowboys occupy a near-mythological prominence in the symbolic American West. For acclaimed photographer Barbara Van Cleve, a fifth-generation Montana rancher, she enjoys capturing the lesser-known or seen lives of women on the ranch.

An exhibition of her photography, “Women of the West,” is on view now at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville through Oct. 15.

In this interview, “City Lights” producer Summer Evans spoke with Barbara Van Cleve and with the exhibit’s curator Mark Medley.

“And I asked them all the same questions, ‘What do you like best about ranching?’ And you know what they said? ‘The freedom,’” Van Cleve said.

The exhibition “Barbara Van Cleve: Women of the West” is on view at the Booth Western Art Museum through Oct. 15 and more information is available here.