If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

Charles M Russell, The Fireboat (1918)

 

One of the most prolific and skillful painters and sculptors who sought to portray the myth and reality of the “Old West,” having witnessed its waning days, was the cowboy-turned-artist, Charlie Russell. He discovered his real vocation after moving to Montana in 1880 to try ranching at the age of 16. Fans of Russell like to repeat the story of how the would-be-artist communicated to absent land owners about the condition of the few surviving cattle after a brutal winter decimated their herd. Instead of a written report, Russell sent a painting of a single bony steer surrounded by prowling coyotes. Titled, Waiting for a Chinook (The Last of the 5,000), the illustration has become one of Russell’s best known images.

From his earliest days, Russell had the gift of being able to capture with drawing and paint the lives of what he would have called ‘Cowboys and Indians’ in ways that others found compelling. By the time of his death, at the age of 61 in 1926, Charlie Russell was one of the most famous artists in America. Despite his abiding interest in the romance of the Old West and its cowboy ethos, Russell was quite knowledgeable about Native American cultural patterns and spent a significant amount of time with the Blackfeet and other regional tribal peoples, making many enduring friendships in the process.

Ever since visiting the C.M. “Charlie” Russell Museum while in middle school, I have wanted to return to Great Falls, Montana, in order to see the splendid collection of his paintings and memorabilia for which that facility provides careful and intelligent stewardship. Recently, I was able to attend the annual CM Russell Museum weekend fundraising gala event that includes an auction of a wide array of Western art, including pieces by the museum’s namesake.

The Charlie and Nancy Russell home

 

Charlie Russell’s Studio, on the same property as the home

 

The Russell Museum is located adjacent to the artist’s restored home and log cabin studio, on a quiet street in a residential neighborhood in Great Falls, a relatively small city located on the banks of the upper Missouri River. Little did we know that this event, coinciding with the annual Western Art Week expo, attracts many buyers and patrons, eager to add to their collections. We marveled at the auction of a 1924 watercolor by Russell, Women of America, sold for the astonishing price of $1.6 million! Another watercolor by Russell, the 1904 Mandan Buffalo Hunt, attained an auction price of $750,000. Both of these recently sold works (reproduced here from the catalogue) provide a sense of Russell’s culturally perceptive, action-oriented paintings.

Women in America (1924)

 

The Mandan Buffalo Hunt (1903)

 

Of particular interest was a presentation offered by the Crow Nation linguist, Dr. Lanny Real Bird, who helped non-Native American listeners undertand the significance of sign language among Plains tribal peoples, and how it was a skill with which Charlie Russell had become proficient. This under-appreciated aspect of Russell’s skillset can be discerned in a painting by the artist that has become one of my favorites, The Fireboat (seen at the top of this post).

Dr. Lanny Real Bird

 

Russell’s painting, The Fireboat, was completed in the latter part of his career, and appears to depict a scene along the upper Missouri River near the artist’s home territory. A steamboat (visible in the far lefthand edge of the painting) has attracted the attention of three members of the Blackfeet Nation, who are joined by a fourth in the background. A setting western sun illumines the figures of the mounted Blackfeet warriors, which – along with the steamboat – subliminally suggests the cultural shift occurring on the Western Plains in the last decades of the 19th century, with the gradual eclipse of one nation by another. The middle figure, whose image helps form a visual triangle within the composition, employs a hand signal, presumably after having viewed the riverboat making its way along the river. Not obvious to the uninformed viewer, but aided by a knowledgeable interpreter of Native American signs such as Dr. Lanny Real Bird, we learn that the hand signal in The Fireboat is the one for fire, making Russell’s title for the painting intelligible.

Charlie Russell’s Western paintings may not display the refinement of technique that we might associate with the work of Frederick Remington, but possess a compelling dynamic realism in their nuanced portrayal of real people, accurately observed in their daily lives. It is worth noting that many of Russell’s finest compositions were completed at his and Nancy’s summer cabin at the edge of Glacier National Park. A visit to Great Falls to see the Russell Museum as well as the excellent Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, just an hour or so from Helena (the state capitol), can enhance a visit to Montana – even in winter – with a significant experience of the artistic and historical spirit of the “Old West.”