End of the day, and he is in no hurry. The cowboy sits cross-legged in a meadow of Texas bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush while his horse stands beside him, still saddled, head lowered as if grazing or simply agreeing that this is the right place to stop. No arena, no audience, no clock running. Just a man, his horse, and a sky that looks like it was painted by someone who has watched a thousand of them and still cannot believe it.

Smith's signature palette is here in full force — that impossible gradient from deep magenta through vermilion and cadmium orange down to a pure chrome yellow at the horizon line — but the mood is different from his rodeo work. Where those compositions explode with motion and dust and adrenaline, this one holds perfectly still. The silhouettes are anchored to the earth by the wildflower band that runs across the bottom third, rendered in quick dabs of blue, green, and red that give the only color detail in the entire painting.

It is the counterweight to everything else Smith has ever put on board. The same hand that throws riders off bulls here lets a man sit down in a field and think about nothing for a while. That restraint — from an artist whose biography suggests he rarely sat still for anything — is what makes the painting land.

That restraint — from an artist whose biography suggests he rarely sat still for anything — is what makes the painting land.

Framed in a black wood frame with copper-toned matting. Ready to hang.