Kansas City Minstrel Show
Note: Click image to see a more detailed photo.
This photo does not do this painting justice. It is highly-distorted and is not accurate to how the actual painting really looks. In order to truly appreciate its high-quality it really needs to be seen in person.
This oil painting is about the time (1872-1880) when Kansas City was in its big heyday. The gold mining was taking place in the hills, the cowboys were bringing up all of their herds of cattle from Texas to be shipped out on the new railroad. Kansas City was a wild Western town with all of these events occurring at one-time.
The town of old Abilene, Kansas (1868-1872), which used to get all of the cattle trade, decided that the cowboys were tearing up their town and causing much trouble than they were worth. In 1872 the The Abilene City Council decided to throw them out and make their town bone dry of all whiskey and strong spirits. The town went dry and the cattle barons moved their herds further to the east and made Kansas City their main center for shipping cattle out on the rail lines to Chicago and other destinations.
In Kansas City, many of the old saloons had large stage shows that displayed beautiful women in a manner that would appeal to the cowboys and miners, which caused them to spend the majority of their trail earnings. They had what was called the Cowboy Minstrel Show, which was extremely colorful and stimulating and was as wild as an unbroken stud bronco to many cowboys. Instrumentalists would play and dance and perform alongside with high-steeping, long-legged professional, singing and dancing, stag women that were part of the Minstrel Troop.
During the beginning of each show, there were beautiful can-can girls that were on the high-stage platform steps that lightly danced and sang backup to the Minstrel dancers. They showed off their beautiful legs to a crowd of wild-eyed wranglers and hard-eyed miners to entice them to spend more money. There were also honky-tonk pianos that pounded out rinky-tink, beautiful blues music. On top of these large pianos were saloon hall girl dancers that danced on top of the pianos to entice the cowboys into spending their hard-earned money.
There were also professional lady singers located at the top of the stage who would lead them in the songs of the time. The minstrel players would dance and sing in an revolving merry-go-round circle, in which they continuously moved in one direction around the stage. The same can-can dancers would perform the can-can dance many times later on in the show after the minstrel troops exited the stage. In the beginning years (around the 1840s), the Minstrel Show was actually a black face show where whites painted themselves as black performers who originated from the deep south. Because of its great popularity and style of performance, it was adapted and turned into a white face show with the same souther themes and styles of dancing.
The Facts on the Kansas City Minstrel Show
| Copyright #: | Currently pending in the copyright office of the Library of Congress |
|---|---|
| Type: | Oil painting |
| Size: | 46" x 66" |
| Price: | $1,500,000 ($5,370,000 for the entire collection) |
| Additional Info: | 2" border frame |
An original oil painting by Richard Lee Cheney.
Ordering Information
Prints may be ordered by mailing a cashier's check or money order to the following address:
Richard L. Cheney
PO Box 1134
Niland CA, 92257