Capturing the Medicine Hat

Best known for his paintings of horses, Lougheed was born in Ontario, Canada, and reared on a farm. He developed a passion for drawing wildlife and studied at the Ontario College of Arts in Toronto and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal before working as an illustrator for the Toronto Star in 1929. Lougheed studied with Frank V. DuMond at the Art Students League. He then worked as a magazine illustrator for Reader's Digest, Sports Afield, True, Argosy, and Collier's, and in commercial advertising, such as Mobil Oil's flying red horse, and calendar images for Brown & Bigelow. In the early 1960s, he spent two months each fall at the Bell Ranch in eastern New Mexico, sketching and painting for a National Geographic series on horses. Lougheed moved to Santa Fe in 1970. Capturing the Medicine Hat was reproduced in Marguerite Henry’s 1972 novel, San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion. Lougheed also collaborated with Henry on her novel, Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West, in 1966. Anonymous Gift