Tom Lea Signed "Toro" — Black Fighting Bull, El Paso Borderland Artist

A commanding side-profile study of a black fighting bull by Tom Lea (1907–2001) — El Paso-born painter, muralist, Life magazine war correspondent, and author of The Brave Bulls (1949). The composition is stripped to essentials: the animal stands on shallow, earth-toned ground, head raised, horn tips catching white light, the dense black of the coat broken by sweeping highlights along the shoulder, flank, and hindquarter. The title "TORO" is set in serif capitals integrated into the image at lower right, with Lea's characteristic looping signature appearing in pencil directly above the plate text.

Bullfighting was not a passing subject for Lea — it was a sustained obsession that shaped some of his most important work. His years of travel in Mexico and his direct experience of the corrida informed both his visual art and his fiction, culminating in The Brave Bulls, which remains one of the defining American novels about the ring. The Toro image sits squarely within that body of work, its economy of line and tonal restraint reflecting the same discipline that made Lea's war dispatches and borderland paintings so lasting.

Tom Lea was born in El Paso in 1907 and spent the greater part of his career there, making him one of the defining artists of the U.S.–Mexico borderland. Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and under John Norton, he returned to El Paso and produced large-scale murals for federal buildings across the region — including the El Paso Post Office (1938) and the Harlingen, Texas courthouse — under New Deal commissions. During World War II he embedded with the Marines and Navy as a Life magazine combat artist, producing some of the most unflinching imagery of the Pacific theater. His painting The Price (1944) became one of the iconic images of the war. His novels The Brave Bulls and The Wonderful Country brought him national literary recognition. The Tom Lea Institute, headquartered in El Paso, preserves his archive and continues to document and authenticate his work.

CONDITION

Very Good overall. An imperfection is present near the bull's throat — nature and extent noted but not further specified. Signature and title text remain crisp; the earth-toned ground is even across the surface.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall: 16 3/4" × 21 1/4"
• Visible (image area): 11 1/4" × 13 1/4"
• Artist: Tom Lea (1907–2001), El Paso, Texas
• Title: Toro
• Signature: Signed lower right in pencil above plate title
• Medium: Lithograph
• Presentation: Unframed