Frederick Remington (1861–1909)
“The soldier, the cowboy & rancher, the Indian…will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily believe,
for all time.” Theodore Roosevelt, October 1907.
After the Civil War in the United States, American painters recorded everyday life as
it changed around them, capturing the temperament of their respective eras, defining
the character of people as individuals, citizens, and members of ever-widening
communities. At first, most painters embedded references to everyday life in portraits,
which were the only works for which a market existed. Beginning about 1830,
however, and largely in response to the development of public exhibition spaces in
New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, some painters were able to free themselves from
dependence on portrait commissions and to adopt new subjects that would appeal to
wider audiences. By the 1850s, the stage-set compositions American artists had
enlisted in the previous decade, derived from European prototypes, gave way to more
outdoor images that captured, literally, a wider view of American life. As population
and wealth increased, there emerged a newly energetic and diversified art market that
included auction houses, art lotteries, and fly-by-night dealers who set up sales shops
in the cities. Artistic competition escalated exponentially and the profession opened to
more artists, including women. Responding to pressure to come up with novel
subjects that would distinguish their works at exhibition and attract purchasers, many
American painters took on current, complex, and often difficult topics, including the
relationships between blacks and whites, men and women, and immigrants and native
workers. But they always enlisted euphemism or subtle ambiguity to portray these
issues. A few artists explored themes from the rugged wilderness, which appealed to
urban viewers seeking vicarious frontier or backwoods adventures. This month we
will explore one such artist.
Frederick Sackrider Remington was an artist who earned high esteem as a chronicler
par excellence by preserving the old American West through his paintings,
illustrations, sculptures, and writings. He was born in upstate New York, in Canton, to
Seth Pierre Remington and Clara Bascomb Sackrider. Remington’s father was a
colonel and a celebrated war hero. In Canton, his father worked as a newspaper editor
and postmaster. His mother was from a long line of hardware store operators.
Remington enjoyed hearing his father tell stories of war victories from an early age.
He enjoyed it so very much he drew many pictures of soldiers and horses.
In 1872 he moved with his family to nearby Ogdensburg. Beginning in autumn 1875,
Remington attended Highland Military Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, a
tenure that was followed by his enrollment, in September 1878, at Yale University.
While at Yale, Remington pursued his passion for football and began his art studies,
studying drawing with John Henry Niemeyer at the School of Fine Arts. This, and a
three-month stint in painting and sketching classes at the Art Students League in New
York in spring 1886, constituted his only formal art training. He left Yale after three
semesters; following his father's death in 1880 (he received an honorary degree from
Yale in 1900). Remington then worked as a clerk for state agencies in Albany.
In 1881, at the age of eighteen, he went west. He roamed from Mexico to Canada,
rode the wagon trains and cattle trails from Texas to Montana, prospected for gold in
the Apache country of the Arizona Territory, and worked as a hired cowboy. He
became the owner of a small ranch in Kansas and part owner of a cowboy saloon in
Kansas City.
Remington's career-long interest in the American West began to take direction
during the summer of 1881 when he traveled to Montana Territory. Two years
later, he bought a quarter share in a sheep ranch in Kansas, yet his involvement in
farming and commercial pursuits in Kansas and Missouri met with little financial
success. Following his marriage to Eva Caten in October 1884, he established a
studio in Kansas City, Missouri. Remington's first published sketch—of a
Wyoming cowboy—appeared in the February 25, 1882, issue of Harper's Weekly.
In 1885, following travels throughout the Southwest, he returned to New York,
settling in Brooklyn, and rose to prominence with black-and-white illustrations that
proclaimed his artistic ability and his talent as a raconteur of frontier life. Between
1885 and 1913, Remington's drawings were published in forty-one periodicals,
including Century Magazine, Collier's, and above all, Harper's Weekly, the eminent
pictorial magazine. He also illustrated books by such notable authors as Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Owen Wister, Francis Parkman, and Theodore Roosevelt,
with whom he shared a lasting friendship. Remington also wrote and illustrated his
own books and articles based on his experiences in the West. He served as a war
correspondent for the New York Journal in Cuba during the Spanish-American
War. Much of Remington's early writing was reportorial; he later produced short
stories, eight anthologies of previously published magazine articles, and two
novels.
Remington traveled frequently on sketching trips to the American West; his
experiences with and observations of Native Americans, cavalrymen, scouts, and
cowboys served as
ongoing creative fodder
for an endless stream of
commissions for
illustrations. While
there, he also took
photographs to use as
reference tools for his
finished studio works.
Remington aspired most
of all to recognition as a
Burgess Finding a Ford (Illustration from Frederic Remington's painter and began
"Pony Tracks," 1895)
exhibiting paintings at
Watercolor on paper, 20 1/2 x 30 1/2 in. (52.1 x 77.5 cm)
the National Academy
Anonymous Gift, 1962
of Design in 1887. Four
years later, in 1891, he was elected an associate member. His few surviving
paintings from this period reflect an attention to dramatic narrative and anecdotal
detail as in the case of A Dash for the Timber (1889; Amon Carter Museum, Fort
Worth). Stylistically, his early paintings—with their tight handling and strong
lighting—reflect indebtedness to French academic painters such as Jean Louis
Ernest Meissonier and Jean Baptiste Édouard Detaille. Remington also took up
watercolor painting at this time, displaying works at the American Water-Color
Society. His subject matter offered a nostalgic, even mythic, look at a rapidly
disappearing western frontier, which underwent dramatic transformation in the face
of transcontinental transportation, Indian confinement to reservation land,
immigration, and industrialization. As Theodore Roosevelt observed of Remington
in Pearson's Magazine in 1907: "He is, of course, one of the most typical American
artists we have ever had, and he has portrayed a most characteristic and yet
vanishing type of American life. The soldier, the cowboy and rancher, the Indian,
the horses and the cattle of the plains, will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily
believe, for all time."
Figure 1
Remington relocated his studio to New Rochelle, New York, in 1890, where he
remained until nearly the end of his career. In 1900, he purchased a small island,
Ingleneuk, in Chippewa Bay on the Saint Lawrence River, where he spent
summers.
Following a lull in the reception of his paintings in 1892, Remington began to look
for another medium. Watching the sculptor Frederic W. Ruckstull (1853-1942)
modeling his equestrian sculpture of Major General John F. Hartrauft in 1894,
Remington was encouraged to begin modeling. He started work on The Bronco
Buster, and by January 1895 Remington wrote his friend the writer Owen Wister,
"my watercolors will fade-but I am to endure in bronze-even rust does not touch-I
am modeling-I find I do well-I am doing a cowboy on a bucking bronco" (FR to
Owen Wister, 1895, Library of Congress, Washington, DC). By the end of March
he could crow to his Yale College classmate Poultney Bigelow, "It's the biggest
business I ever did and if some of these rich sinners over here will cough up and
buy a couple of dozen I will go into the 'mud business'" (FR to Poultney Bigelow,
1895, Poultney Bigelow Collection of Remington
Letters, Saint Lawrence University, Canton, NY).
Remington's Broncho Buster, copyrighted in 1895,
was an instant success, admired for its moment-intime rendering of a cowboy astride a bucking horse.
More than 300 authorized bronze casts were
produced by New York foundries, first by the sandcasting method at Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company,
and, beginning in 1900, by lost-wax casting at
Roman Bronze Works. Remington went on to model
Figure 2
The Bronco Buster, 1895
bronze
26 in. x 19 in. x 14 in. (66.04 cm x
48.26 cm x 35.56 cm)
twenty-one sculpture groups, almost all of western
subjects. Some were inspired by motifs developed in
his paintings and illustrations; others were
innovative and complex multifigure compositions.
His talent for sculpture was matched by his technical derring-do (notably textural
detail and innovative patination) and predilection for storytelling detail, resulting in
some of the finest American small bronzes of the time. Unlike most of his fellow
sculptors, Remington rarely worked on a monumental scale. His only extant fullsize sculpture is The Cowboy (1905–8; Fairmount Park, Philadelphia).
Remington was a skillful marketer of his art throughout his career, reflected by his
ongoing commercial success and public appreciation. He exhibited his work
consistently. The American Art Association in New York held exhibitions and
sales of his paintings and black-and-white illustrations in 1893 and 1895; the Noe
Galleries held exhibitions in 1905 and 1906. Remington's statuettes and paintings
were displayed for sale at prominent New York showrooms such as Tiffany &
Company and M. Knoedler, the latter which held several solo exhibitions.
Remington earned institutional approbation as well: both the Corcoran Gallery of
Art, in 1905, and the Metropolitan Museum, in 1907, purchased his bronze
statuettes.
In the last years of his life, Remington worked at a prodigious pace. In addition to
modeling his sculptures and managing their casting, he continued his illustration
work. In 1903, he negotiated an exclusive contract with the pictorial magazine
Collier's for a double-page spread or cover illustration of at least one painting
monthly. After the turn of the century, his painting style transformed to reflect the
impact of an impressionist palette and sketchier brushwork. A series of nocturnal
scenes of western subjects epitomizes his shift in emphasis from detailed narrative
to atmospheric mood. Other late oils, such as On the Southern Plains, demonstrate
a bravura handling of paint that complements the spirited movement of horses and
soldiers across dusty terrain.
In 1909, the artist moved from New Rochelle to Ridgefield, Connecticut, which he
learned of through his former Art Students League teacher and American
Impressionist painter Julian Alden Weir. Remington died in 1909, at age fortyeight, from complications following an appendectomy. The Frederic Remington
Art Museum, which houses paintings, illustrations, sculpture, and memorabilia, is
located in Ogdensburg, New York.
Thayer Tolles
Department of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/remi/hd_remi.htm
JHD
Currier Museum of Art
http://collections.currier.org/Obj14?sid=20850&x=268825
Focus Painting for Lesson
In The Stampede, Remington is depicting two cowboys trying to gather a group of runaway cows
that were frightened by lightening. A single bolt of lightning can be seen in the upper right-hand
corner of the painting. Remington created a monochromatic scene, using tints and shades of
green. These colors create a rain-like effect in the painting, adding to the viewer’s understanding
of the harshness of the conditions. Remington also used some yellow-greens; they are light
values used to create spots of light in the painting. Green is often an eerie color, and in this
painting it represents the strange light during a thunderstorm, as well as the expressive quality of
the fear of the stampede.
Remington painted The Stampede in oil paints on canvas.
Cultural Perspective
The Stampede was painted at a time when large-scale cattle ranching was becoming a booming
business in the American West. Herds of cattle were grazed over vast expanses of the open range
while small bands of cowboys on horseback rode along the edges of the herd to direct their
movement and to guard them from predators. Because the cattle herds moved distances of
hundreds of miles, cowboys camped out in the open for weeks or months as they “rode the
range.” The scene depicted in The Stampede shows a cowboy galloping through a violent
lightning storm, leading a frenzied herd of cattle stampeding through the rain. In the open plains
of the West, it was often difficult to find shelter from dangerous weather. Cowboys earned
reputations for being tough, hard, and fearless after years of working the open range.
Four Hooves Off the Ground
In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge’s (Edward MY-bridge) photos of racehorses in motion
proved that all four hooves leave the ground at one time.
Accurate Leg Position
Muybridge’s photos also revealed another misconception: in their off-the-ground
position, the legs were bunched together under the belly, rather than in the
“hobbyhorse attitude,” with front legs stretched forward and hind legs backward,
which was traditional in painting. In using this pose for The Cheyenne, 1901, bronze,
Remington was one of the first artists to take advantage of this new information.
Mane & Tail
The horse’s mane and tail add to the sculpture’s sense of motion—they appear to be
blown back by the wind.
http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/wpcontent/uploads/2008/11/remington_ec_final.pdf
COWBOY HISTORY
The era of the long drives to Kansas and the northern ranges only lasted about 25
years. But the legend and myth of the cowboy continues to this day, perpetuated in
clothing and western movies. A cowboy’s life, unlike the movies’ version, was often
dull and monotonous. Working for $25 a month, cowboys were usually young men
from various walks of life. Some were former soldiers from the Civil War, some were
outlaws trying to escape the law, and some were the sons of wealthy easterners and
foreigners trying to get a taste of the old West. They included blacks, whites and
Hispanics. They all put in long days on the trail.
The trail drive began in the late spring when grass was plentiful. For three months, a
handful of man rode herd over more than 1000 head of wild longhorn cattle, moving
them less than fifteen miles a day. The centerpiece of any cattle drive was the chuck
wagon. Charles Goodnight is given credit for inventing the first of these by taking an
old army wagon and strengthening it with extra hard wooden axles, and having a
chuck box mounted on the rear end. A storage area to the front carried supplies and
bedrolls. In many ways the cook or "cookie" was the most important member of the
drive, and he generally got paid better than the other men. The cook drove the chuck
wagon ahead of the herd and was responsible for selecting campsites in the evenings
and stopovers for the noonday meal. Besides the cook, there was the trail boss, an
experienced cowboy who had been up the trail before, knew where the grass and
water were and also knew the dangers along the trail. Some cowboys were positioned
at the front of the herd while others rode "flank" on the sides of the herd and still
others rode "drag" at the back of the herd. All cowboys shared the job of watching the
herd at night, hoping that the cattle did not become spooked and begin running.
Younger cowboys were often given the job of horse wrangler. Their job was to care
for the horses used to herd the animals along the long drive north.
On the trail, cowboys encountered the boredom and dangers of riding herd on more
than 1000 head of cattle. Cowboys ran into unpredictable weather. Crossing
treacherous rivers, some cowboys and cattle drowned. There were rattlesnakes,
stampedes, and Indians. In the early days of the cattle drives, Indians still ranged
across West Texas, leading a nomadic lifestyle chasing buffalo. Some Comanche
ranged across northwest Texas until the mid-1870s when Quanah Parker led his band
to Fort Sill, in Oklahoma.
When the cowboys finally reached the end of the trail, they celebrated in grand style.
Then it was back to Texas for another drive the next year.
The cattle drive era was a unique period in American history, but it did not last long.
The days of the long drives were coming to an end by the 1890s for a number of
reasons. The railroads continued to build lines further west into Kansas and eventually
lines were built to Ft. Worth, shrinking the drives from South Texas significantly.
Texas cattle carried ticks which in turn carried a disease called Texas Fever. As
settlers moved west, they planted crops around which the cowboys had to take their
cattle herds. Barbed wire also ended the long drives. By 1881 there were 1229 United
States government patents for wire. The invention of the refrigerated car by Gustavus
Swift also aided in the decline of the long drive.
In the 1880s, some ranchers and investors began to carve out huge ranches in West
Texas and the Texas Panhandle to capture prime grazing land and water. Cowboys
continued to use the skills they had mastered on the long drives north, only chances
were, by the 1890s they probably worked on a ranch following rules for rounding up
cattle set up by new cattlemen’s associations.
By the end of the 19th and continuing into the early 20th century, some of the largest
ranches in Texas began to sell off their lands. Railroads were awarded huge chunks of
Texas lands to build rails across the state, and homesteaders were moving onto the
lands formerly used for running cattle. Ranchers finally gave way to farmers and
settlers on the Texas High Plains, but this part of Texas was one of the last to be
settled. Immediately after the Civil War, few settlers had ventured onto the High
Plains, a windy grass-covered land of few trees and little water, controlled by the
Comanche Indians. Even today the region is sparsely populated compared to other
parts of the state.
Following the ranchers in the 1870s and 1880s came farmers, and after them came
merchants whose numbers turned small villages into towns. Foreign investors who
had put much of their money into large Texas cattle ranches now thought they could
make more money by breaking up their lands and selling them to these new farmers
and settlers. Many of the big ranches in West Texas hired land promotion companies
to sell their land. Gradually, much of the lands were sold off to farmers, and the era of
huge ranches came to an end.
Pioneer settlers who came to West Texas had high hopes of a new life, and land
ownership beckoned them to the high plains. Life was hard and the lonesome solitude
was more than many could bear. But there was a real sense of community on the high,
desolate land. Small towns such as Lubbock grew into prosperous cities based on
agriculture.
http://swco.ttu.edu/history_trunk/Ranching%20Frontier.htm
Critical Thinking
1.
2.
3.
4.
Explain the kind if mood represented in Stampede
What kind of colors did Remington use in his painting? Discuss why.
Describe how Remington creates the illusion of movement.
List shapes that Remington used in this painting. (use a dry erase marker on the
poster and let kids trace shapes)
5. What if you were riding this horse? Describe how it would feel.
Questions to Consider
Why is it important that we study history?
What is an artifact?
What is a timeline and how can it help people distinguish between the near and past?
If Remington was an artist, what kind of art did he make?
What is the difference between a sketch, a drawing, a painting, and a bronze?
Who were Native Americans and American Cowboys in Remington’s paintings and
how did Remington help to preserve their legacies?
Frederic Remington had the idea that he should preserve the west. He decided to do
this through his drawings and illustrations, which is why he travelled with and
collected artifacts from various groups, (Native Americans, American Cowboys,
Military figures, Buffalo Soldiers) and brought them back to NYS to his art studios.
He then used these artifacts as references as he created paintings and bronzes.
Remington believed we should preserve the heritage of the west as a period of time
important to United States history. The people at the Frederic Remington Art Museum
feel that it is important to gather and organize the information and artifacts that were
left to us by Remington and his family so that we can use it to interpret the west and
Remington's role in promoting it. This is an example of how traditions and practices
are passed from one generation to the next.
Activities
1. Compare Remington’s painting with a painting or photograph of horses from
the same time period or earlier.
2. Talk about how a horse moves; get ideas from the children. Have the children
move around the room or outside like a horse.
Show the children Remington’s painting, The Stampede. Ask them: What do
you see?
Help students find words to describe the color, feel of movement, etc., in the
image. How can you tell the horse is running? Help them point out observations
that help them make this conclusion.
You will then have the children try to mimic the look of speed and movement
by wearing light capes/scarves around their waists. If you have enough
assistance, divide the children into smaller groups. Let them run around and
twirl with the capes around their waists, taking turns as needed. They should
watch each other’s capes and their own. Optional: Take pictures to freeze the
motion of the cape and their bodies. Look at the pictures and talk about how
you can tell they were moving.
Revisit the painting. Ask the children if they can find anything from their
pictures that is similar to what they see in The Stampede?
3. Have the class make a night image with pastels, paints or pencils.
Have them think about light sources in their image. What colors will make a
dark, night feeling without using black? If they want to add action to their
image, how will they express that without cartoon lines?