He chased wild horses and rode bucking broncos all the way from the Powder River to the Gila, from Cheyenne to Carson City, from Butte to Bisbee.
Ryder's soft pastels colored paintings captured the dusty brooding southwestern twilight skies.
He ran away from home at the age of 13 for the logging camps of Oregon and the Salmon fishing along the Tillamock and Trask Rivers.
In 1926, he was offered an art job at the Mark Sennet Studios, working on a giant relief map of California that was installed in San Francisco's Ferry Building.
Jack Van Ryder epitomized the artist-cowboy and his legacy helped shape romantic views of the southwest.
His western landscape paintings were bold and emotional, often in soft hues of purple and blue with expansive skies.
He illustrated books and painted magazine covers, including Jack Weadock's picture of Tucson: "Dust of the Desert."
These are the personal accounts from his wife Mary Colt Van Ryder of Hartford Connecticut as she relayed them to me.