Curator’s Corner

During his time as a regular illustrator, apart from his documentation of the American Indian Wars and the Spanish American War, Frederic Remington was often sent out on assignment to capture the daily routines of the cavalry. In 1893, he traveled out west to Yellowstone National Park to write and illustrate an article about the 6th Cavalry patrols in the park to prevent poaching, including the dwindling bison herd that was supposed to be protected there.   “Policing the Yellowstone,” Frederic Remington, Harper’s Weekly, January 12, 1895   Remington’s article appeared in the January 12, 1895 issue of [...]

The Golden Age of American illustration wasn’t limited to popular periodicals of the era. Charles Russell and Frederic Remington also contributed illustrations for different book projects. In 1902, Remington painted Days on the Range to serve as the frontispiece for Alfred Henry Lewis’s book Wolfville Days. The scene portrayed in Remington’s canvas relates to the 19th chapter in the book, “When the Stage was Stopped.” In this last section of the book, the narrator describes a long-winded tale about stagecoach robberies and holdups. In the story, the townspeople of Wolfville devise a scheme to trick one of the suspected bandits, [...]

The Golden Age of American Illustration began in the 1880s and lasted into the mid-twentieth century. During this time, New York replaced London as the center of illustrated periodicals published in the English language. Technological advances allowed for inexpensive yet high quality images to be reproduced easily and distributed to a wide audience through magazines like the popular Harper’s Magazine, Century Magazine, and Collier’s. And Frederic Remington and Charles Russell were on hand to contribute their art! Remington’s first commercial illustration appeared in an 1882 issue of Harper’s Weekly, and just a handful of years later, Russell’s first illustration was [...]

Though Frederic Remington and Charles Russell are known today as fine artists, both worked as illustrators throughout their careers, creating paintings en grisaille, or in black & white, intended for reproduction to accompany stories and text. Our new exhibition – Remington and Russell in Black and White – features an array of both artists’ original greyscale masterworks paired with their counterparts printed in magazines and books. During Remington & Russell’s time, illustrated magazines and books garnered wide popularity in the U.S., and thus earned the moniker The Golden Age of American Illustration, which began in the 1880s and lasted into [...]

Recently, I was spending some time walking with a colleague around our current exhibition, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media. We were lingering in one corner of the gallery that highlights a collection of objects and artworks centered around the subject of “counting coup.” What is counting coup? Counting coup was a system of graduated points wherein the first man to touch an enemy was awarded a first coup or “direct hit.” To count coup, one might use his hand, bow, lance, or perhaps rattles or whips.   Charles M. Russell | Counting Coup (Medicine Whip) | 1902 | [...]

In our last blog post, we explored Charles Russell’s friendships with a couple of well-known artists, Maynard Dixon and Philip Goodwin, the latter of which Russell collaborated with on an art project at his summer cabin. Other artists and friends Russell collaborated with include Russell’s close friend and first serious art dealer Charles Schatzlein and Butte artist Edgar S. Paxon. The three Montanans painted a portrait of an American Indian, which our museum visitors will see on display in our current exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media. Schatzlein owned the Schatzlein Paint Company in Butte, Montana and admired Russell’s [...]

While Charles Russell led a successful artistic career, largely in part to the business savvy of his wife and manager Nancy Cooper Russell, not every creative output was intended for sale. His illustrated letters and even some significant paintings and sculptures were made specifically as gifts for the artist’s close friends. Some of these works were gifted to reciprocate the hospitality Charlie and Nancy received during their travels to promote his art. Who were these friends? A section of artworks featured in our current exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, relate to the friendships Russell kept. The cowboy artist [...]

Within our current exhibit, Night & Day: Frederic Remington’s Final Decade, visitors will observe how the artist returns to compositions and themes first represented in his illustrations and now reimagined as dynamically painted fine works of art. Remington’s habitual patterns of revision extend to his work in three dimensions as seen in the bronze sculptures on display in the front gallery of the museum. Remington modeled 22 subjects for bronze casting from 1895 until his death in 1909. When he started, he used the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co. to sand cast his first 4 bronze subjects. Then sometime in 1900, Remington [...]

Opening to the public this Saturday, September 24, 2022 is a new exhibit titled, Night and Day: Frederic Remington’s Final Decade. On display through April 23, 2023, this exhibition explores works made in the last decade of Remington’s life, ranging from 1900-09, when the artist alternated his canvases between the color dominant palettes of the blue-green of night and yellow-orange of daylight.   Frederic Remington | A Figure of the Night (The Sentinel) | 1908 | Oil on canvas | 30 x 21 1/8 inches   Frederic Remington | Self-Portrait On A Horse | c. 1890 | [...]

Here come the saucy riders, Girls who are Texas born; Who know the rhythm of riding Over prairie sage and thorn Watch how they cut and circle, Canter and gallop and pace; Each girl and horse united In a flowing pulse of grace. Surely such easy motion, Free from strain or fear, Comes only to those who are quickened By the life of the pioneer.   “Girl Riders,” by Mrs. W. E Boswell, President, National Poetry League in “Poems of the West,” Rodeo Souvenir Annual, 1947, page 67   Though many of the pages of the 1947 Rodeo Souvenir Annual [...]