Blog

As millions of settlers moved into the western United States between the 1860s and the early 1900s, they relied on a continent-spanning communications network to connect them to the wider world: the US Post.   Charles M. Russell, Maney Snows Have Fallen. . .(Letter from Ah-Wa-Cous [Charles Russell] to Short Bull), ca.1909 – 1910, Watercolor, pen & ink on paper, 8 x 10 inches     Thoughts of the American West and the postal service often conjure images of the Pony Express from the mid-19th century. But despite its hold on the American imagination, the Pony Express was a [...]

Our current exhibition, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, focuses on the artist’s talent and ability to tell stories – largely set in the American West – through his art. When Hollywood emerged in the 20th century and began producing Westerns, many of the great film directors like John Ford often looked to artists like Russell as a visual model for storytelling. How does one tell the story of a Western? And what happens when the themes of the Western, this quintessential American genre, transform through changes in cultural constructions and acquire new meanings when it transcends borders? Stories of [...]

Our current exhibition, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, centers around the artist’s talent to tell stories through his visual art. Famous for his narratives set in the open range of Montana, Russell wasn’t the only storyteller of the American West. In the early 20th century, Chip of the Flying U was a popular novel about a ranch in Montana and was written by B. M. Bower. Who was this writer? She was Bertha Muzzy Bower, likely the first female author of mass-market Western fiction.   Portrait of B. M. Bower, circa 1890. Courtesy Cascade County Historical Society [...]

This past summer, our director Scott Winterrowd took a work trip up to Montana to visit and document the sites where Charles Russell lived and worked. Throughout the cowboy artist’s career, he was not always specific about the landscapes he painted as backdrops for his artworks. Instead, like many other artists, Russell would translate what he saw through his artistic lens and his own way of looking at the world. Often, the resulting landscape would be a compression of the vast spaces of “Big Sky” country. One of the main points of inspiration for Russell was in what is now [...]

During his residence in Montana, Charles Russell encountered Indigenous people, both on the northern plains of the state and from neighboring tribes in Alberta, Canada. He lived in the area where Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk among the Native community, was an important communication system among the Plains tribal members. Due to his relationships with many members of nearby Indigenous tribes, Russell learned signs of PISL and incorporated them into some of his paintings.   Mapping of North American Indian Sign Language     Outline of corresponding tribes with various regional variations [...]