FREDERIC REMINGTON
Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course
Remington’s life was as full of vigor and action as his pictures. Outdoor life and athletic sports were always a hobby of his. When he was at Yale he was on Walter Camp’s original football team, when Camp was practically inventing the American game, and Remington assisted him.
Frederic Remington was born at Canton, a little village in St. Lawrence County, New York State, in 1861. His father, a newspaper man, wanted to train him to follow the same profession; but Remington’s taste for dabbing at art was too strong. In the Yale Art School he picked up a little about art and a great deal about football. He could not accommodate himself to college routine; so he tried life for awhile as confidential clerk for Governor Cornell at Albany. This job was too quiet for him; so he threw it up and went out to Montana to “punch cows.” Remington became a downright, genuine cowboy, and his four years in the saddle brought him the accurate, minute knowledge of horses, Indians, cattle, and life on the plains that marks his work.
After roughing it as a cowboy, Remington went to Kansas and started a mule ranch, made some money at it, then wandered south, taking a turn as ranchman, scout, guide, and in fact anything that offered. When his money was gone his mind turned back to art. As he said, “Now that I was poor I could gratify my inclination for an artist’s career. In art, to be conventional, one must start out penniless.” So he made some drawings which the Harpers accepted. The material was fresh and full of spirit; so Remington got an order to go west and get up illustrations for a series of articles on the life of the plains. He was lucky enough to strike in on an Indian campaign. His success as an illustrator was so great that he never after lacked for commissions. He even went as far as Russia in 1892. Gradually people came to know that a new and vigorous personality had taken his stand in the field of art, and that his name was Frederic Remington. His sketches and paintings of soldiers, Indians, cowboys, and trappers were full of character, and came to be known far and wide both as illustrations and as independent works of art.
Remington brought all his subjects fresh from life straight to his canvas. He lived an active outdoor life, worked hard, and was ever seeking for new material. It was his dream to go to a real war, and in 1898 he got his chance. The well known playwright, Augustus Thomas, for years a neighbor of Remington’s, states that he called the artist up early one morning in February, 1898, and told him that the Maine had been blown up and sunk. The only thanks or comment he got was a shout from Remington, “Ring off!” As Thomas rang off he could hear Remington call the private telephone number of his publishers in New York. At that very minute the artist was in his mind already entered for war service.
The latter years of Remington’s life were spent in various trips and in periods of quiet work in his home studio at New Rochelle, New York. There anyone could find him—big, simple and good-natured, modest and plain-spoken, working out his vigorous compositions in a large roomy studio most appropriately constructed and decorated for his purpose.
His collection of relics of all sorts and from all quarters of the world was unique. Aside from his painting and modeling, Remington was justly celebrated for his writing. His descriptive powers were vivid and telling, and his stories, which fill several volumes, are full of living interest.
Remington died very suddenly of pneumonia on December 26, 1909. His place in American art is unique. There is no one quite like him. He knew his power, and he exercised it with ease and confidence. His work was his life, and his life was with strong, primitive types of men and with animals, all of whom he loved. The epitaph he wanted for himself was, “He knew the Horse.”
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ARTIST
WILD HORSE HUNTERS. By Charles M. Russell
“WILD HORSE HUNTERS,” by Charles M. Russell, a spirited picture of an episode in the rough life of the plains, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”