Charles M. Russell became a legendary painter and sculptor of frontier activities of the American West. Born in St. Louis, he moved west to Montana where he lived out his life. Unlike Frederick Remington, his contemporary, he lived where he painted and was an actual cowboy. He was known to live with a mountain man and was an adopted brother of the Blackfoot. His subject preference was Indians and Cowboys, while Remington focused on cavalry troops. He worked in oils, watercolors, and bronzes, and after Remington's death in 1909, his career took off.

Russell's contribution to American art came as a storyteller and mythmaker of the Old West. Russell and Remington did more than any other artists to visualize the West of popular imagination. Both artists had their illustrations appear in Harper's Weekly, Scribner's, Century Magazine, Collier's and others. The impression of the West as full of men who were rugged individualists, who lived in balance and harmony with nature was created and carried on by movies, radio TV and commercial advertisements.

Russell married Nancy Cooper, who had the vision to understand his work and its quality and the business sense to promote him both here and abroad. He was "Montana's Cowboy Artist" and by 1911 was having solo exhibitions and showed his work in London in 1914. After his death in 1926, Mrs. Russell continued to manage and control his many completed and unfinished works during her life. He completed over 4,000 works and set the standard for all western artists.

Medium : 1 photomechanical print : halftone, color

Created/Published : 1905

Creator : Charles M. Russell, artist, 1864-1926

Housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

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Product #: abadhoss1