Charles Marion Russell the Cowboy Artist
C M Russell Painted Life of Montana Cowboys and Great Plains Indians
Aug 11, 2009
Charles Marion Russell was born on March 19th 1864 near St Louis, Missouri. His family owed its prosperity to the brick-making and coalmining industries. At home Charley heard tales about the fur trade, trappers, and encounters with native American Indians.
Charles Marion Russell Early Life
From an early age Charley played truant from school, becoming obsessed with going West. Despite attending military school he failed to straighten out. Aged fifteen, his parents sent him West to Montana to work on a sheep ranch. They hoped the reality of hard work would force him to conform. They were wrong.
Charley did not take to sheep and was sacked. Instead he teamed up with a trapper, Jake Hoover. For two years Charley Russell lived with Jake in his log cabin. No doubt skinning and butchering contributed to the developing artist’s anatomical knowledge of animals.
The buffalo would become Charley’s greatest icon. He revered it, railing against its devastation and using its skull as a trademark on his letters. He was a conservationist before it was fashionable, never hunting for sport alone and respecting the wilderness.
Charles Marion Russell and Cowboy Life
In 1882 Charley experienced the lonely cowboy life as a night herder of cattle. He kept this job for eleven years, using the daytime hours to observe other cowboys and draw the reality of their lives. He became a great storyteller, illustrating his tales with deftly made beeswax figurines.
During the bitter winter of 1886 another cowboy was sitting in the bunkhouse in Utica trying to write a letter to a friend, describing the terrible conditions. Charley drew him a picture of a dying cow surrounded by wolves, titled Waiting for a Chinook. When the friend received this illustration with no letter, he displayed it in his shop window in Helena where it attracted a great deal of attention. There was no need for words.
Charles Marion Russell and American Indian Culture
Charley had a deep interest in American Indian culture. In the winter of 1888 he stayed in Canada with the Blood Indians of Alberta, kin of the Blackfoot confederacy. He painted buffalo hunts and scenes of daily life, ensuring every detail was anthropologically correct, even down to the beadwork on clothing. He gave dignity to Plains Indian women, admiring their resourcefulness .The Blood Indians gave Charley the name Ah-wah-cous, or Antelope.
Charles Marion Russell Marriage and Fame
In 1893 Charley moved to Great Falls where he lived a sparse life selling his work. He painted the nearby landscape of Cascade and it was here that he met his future wife, Nancy. Just 17, she was living with a family, helping out with the chores. A year later they were married and Nancy became Charley’s business manager.
On visits to New York Nancy persuaded galleries and collectors to buy Charley’s work. He gained commissions from the likes of The New York Times. Back in Great Falls, Montana they moved to a better neighbourhood and Nancy had a log studio built in the garden where Charley could paint in solitude. After twenty years of childlessness they adopted a boy, Jack.
Theodore Roosevelt bought a bronze sculpture and movie stars collected his work. The Montana legislature commissioned Charley to paint a huge mural in the State Capitol showing Lewis and Clark’s historic meeting with the Flathead Indians. Charley made sure the Flathead Indians dominated the mural.
Death of Charles Marion Russell
Charley died of a heart attack on October 24, 1926 at the age of 62. He lies on a hilltop overlooking the Montana landscape he so lovingly captured on canvas.
Source:
- 'C M Russell: Cowboy Artist' by Bart McDowell National Geographic, Vol 1698, No. 1, January 1986
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
