RUSSELL, THE COWBOY ARTIST

A DANGEROUS CRIPPLE

By Charles M. Russell

There followed Remington an artist very distinctive of the soil, one who was of the land in that he had been a veritable cowboy, knew his West thoroughly, had lived with the Indians, spoke several of the tribal languages, and, still more useful accomplishment, was familiar with that picturesque, poetic, universal means of communication among savages of the Great West, the sign language. This was Charles M. Russell (1865). In Great Falls, Montana, where he lives and has a home and studio, he is one of the institutions. Few travelers in that part of this country fail to pay him a visit. They call him the “Cowboy Painter,” and with reason; for during several years he followed that profession. Also he lived long among the Indians, sharing their camps, their food, riding after game, winter and summer, dwelling with them as a brother.

CHARLES M. RUSSELL

The Cowboy Artist

Though he always drew pictures, he never saw the inside of an art school, nor had he ever a teacher. Artistically, like Topsy, he just grew. He cannot recollect the time when a lead pencil did not seem part of his equipment, and he filled sketchbooks with notes. Somewhere about 1892 he concluded to take up seriously the profession of artist, and turned his attention to illustrative work. Among his efforts in this direction were drawings for Stewart Edward White’s delightful “Arizona Nights,” Emerson Hough’s “Story of the Outlaw,” and Wheeler’s “Trail of Lewis and Clark.”

Russell went from St. Louis, his birthplace, to Montana when he was but a lad, so that he learned much of woodcraft and the ways of the plainsman. Today there are few who excel him in throwing the lariat; he is an adept with the pistol; horses are second nature to him; buffaloes he hunted and killed by the hundred in earlier days. So it will be seen that when Mr. Russell started in to paint the West he was reasonably well equipped and rendered whereof he knew.

Since some years now stern men in blue and khaki have seen to it that the Indian is kept on his reservation; business men with the wire fences now look after the interests of investors in ranch property; life in the West has lost much of its picturesqueness; civilization and order control affairs. But Russell’s memory of all these earlier conditions remains. So distinctly were his first illustrations of the soil that they attracted the attention of some of the English weeklies, which made arrangements for his work. From this to painting was an easy transition. No one was more surprised at his sudden success than the artist himself, who had drawn these pictures because of his great love of the work and to whom financial gain was the last consideration.

So it came about that Mr. Russell turned his attention to compositions of various sorts,—the lassoing of cattle, the intimate glimpses of Indian life, the ways of the cowboys, and occasionally episodes of army life. They were all true transcripts, painted with considerable sympathy and enthusiasm. Many of his pictures found favor in England, titled people of that nation hunting in the West regarding these canvases not only entertaining but as remarkably faithful. He has been spoken of as the painter of the “West that has Passed.” Like Remington, Mr. Russell has attempted with no little success the task of representing by sculpture some of the Indians and animals of the plains.