GUEST: The man on the horse is my grandfather. He was a neighbor of J.K. Ralston on the Missouri Breaks. Culbertson is across the river from there. And he was also a neighbor of Charlie Russell. When my grandfather died at a fairly early age, my grandmother requested that Kenny, as they called him, would paint a picture of my grandfather, which he did. And that was in 1953. My grandfather died in 1924.
APPRAISER: The artist we're dealing with is John Kenneth Ralston. And your grandfather must have known him when he was a much younger man. Ralston was born in 1896.
GUEST: Oh, yes.
APPRAISER: But lived a long time, until 1987. So he's recalling some of his youth. It's a Western painting, and it's a painting that has a lot of associations here in Billings.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: You mentioned he's a neighbor of Charles Russell, who was a very famous Western artist.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And he has a lot of things in common, I think, with Russell. He's a younger generation. But one of the things is the closeness to the land. Ralston's family were ranchers. His first love, his first vocation, was cattle ranching…
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: …before he became a painter.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: We see your grandfather here on horseback.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: I guess he had a distinctive handlebar mustache.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: And is this the brand for the family?
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: Now, it looks like he has horses. Did they have horses or cattle?
GUEST: He had horses.
APPRAISER: Horses. Billings is important because Ralston has his studio here in Billings.
GUEST: Right. There's a log cabin studio.
APPRAISER: That's a very common thing to have out here, out west. You had the studio of Charles Russell here in Montana, Remington down in Wyoming. The frame is a Western frame. It's fairly plain, but I don't think I would change it or anything. It's a family painting. It's not something I think you would ever part with.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: He's a lesser light in the firmament, but he's still a good, competent painter. And I would think if you were to insure this I'd probably insure it for about $15,000 these days.
GUEST: $15,000?
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: Great, yeah. That's wonderful.
