Wild Bunch photo auctioned for $85,000

George Watson

Tuesday, April 4, 2000 | 10:53 a.m.

NEW YORK - A turn-of the century photograph of "The Wild Bunch" - an ill-advised joke that robbed the last real western gang of its anonymity - sold for $85,000 at an auction.

A private collector who was not identified bought the original at the Swann Galleries auction house. The photograph, which carries the imprint of the photographer, John Swartz of Fort Worth, was the most famous of the several pieces sold Monday from the personal collection of James D. Horan, an author and western Americana expert who died in 1980.

The Wild Bunch portrait depicts five notorious outlaws - including Robert LeRoy Parker and Henry Longabaugh, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wearing Derby hats. Also pictured are Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, William Carver and Harvey Logan, who went by the name Kid Curry.

As legend has it, the five robbed a Nevada bank in the early 1900s and soon after, decided to buy new hats because their old ones were showing their wear.

They found the Derbies, far from western style, and donned them for the portrait in jest. Then - to spite their latest victim - they sent the photograph to bank they had just robbed.

It turned out to be a terrible decision for the gang that terrorized Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado. The portrait made its way to the Pinkerton Agency, where detectives copied it and issued duplicates across the country.

What direct impact the portrait had on the band's criminal activities isn't known. But with their faces splashed throughout the West, the bandits lost the element of surprise that had been so useful in pillaging banks, trains and other targets.

With authorities gaining on them, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - whose names became the title of the 1969 classic film that detailed their lives - headed to South America.

Once there, it's believed they met their demise during a fierce encounter with Bolivian soldiers in 1908.

Swann Galleries, an auction house that sells rare books, autographs, photos, prints, drawings and posters, had expected The Wild Bunch photograph to sell for from $25,000-$45,000. The $85,000 sale includes the buyer's premium of $10,000.

Also sold at the Old West auction were a portfolio of Edward Curtis photographs and two photos of Buffalo Bill.