A Misdeal and the Movies: Frederic Remington, John Ford, and the Birth of the Cinematic West
What happens when a painting leaps from the canvas onto the silver screen? That is the story at the heart of a recent lecture at the lecture Sid Richardson Museum, in which our director, Scott Winterrowd, traced the fascinating journey of Remington’s 1897 painting A Misdeal—a smoky, tense card game gone wrong—through Hollywood history, illuminating how Western art and cinema became deeply intertwined. Remington’s A Misdeal is not attached to any specific story, yet it brims with narrative potential. Gunsmoke lingers in a dimly lit saloon. Wounded players slump at the table, with one figure still standing at center. The [...]