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Lot Essay
Frederic Remington is considered one of the nation's foremost artists of the Old West. His unparalleled ability to convey the spirit of the West can be seen most succinctly through his paintings of cowboys, cavalrymen, Native Americans and Mexicans.
After briefly attending the Yale College School of Art and following his father's death, Remington made his first trip to the West in the summer of 1881, traveling through Montana. The following year marked the beginning of Remington's career in illustration with a work published in the national magazine Harper's Weekly. In 1883, wanting to experience the West firsthand, the artist purchased a sheep ranch near Peabody, Kansas. This spurred a move to Kansas City in 1884 with his new wife Eva Caten. The couple returned to New York within a year due to financial troubles. Remington continued to make frequent trips to the South and Northwest, areas from which the artist drew his greatest artistic inspiration.
Remington's desire to return West and record the passing frontier was satisfied with a commission from Harper's Weekly in 1886. Within a year, Remington's illustrations of the West animated the pages of not only Harper's Weekly, but also other prestigious magazines including Outing Youth's Companion and the Century Magazine. As a star illustrator, Remington quickly gained considerable acclaim that led to future assignments with noteworthy patrons, including President Theodore Roosevelt and the influential military hero, General Nelson A. Miles.
By the 1890s Remington was one of the most popular artists in the nation. His truly authentic portrayal of Western life gained widespread praise and his work came to define the country's perception of the remote region. William Coffin, a renowned art critic at the time commented in 1892: "It is a fact that Eastern people have formed their conceptions of what the Far-Western life is like, more from what they have seen from Mr. Remington's pictures than from any other source, and if they went to the West or to Mexico they would expect to see men and places looking exactly as Mr. Remington has drawn them. Those who have been there are authority for saying they would not be disappointed." (Frederic Remington, p. 65)
The success of Remington's paintings was defined by his ability to encapsulate in a single image the essence of a story or event. In Hello, Jose!, executed circa 1897, Remington masterfully captures on canvas the events at hand -- a lone cowboy confronted by an approaching mysterious Mexican. Through his unique painting technique and masterful sense of story-telling, Remington created a vision that helped shape the popular imagination of the Old West. More importantly, Remington immortalizes in these dramatic images the passing of a way of life.
After briefly attending the Yale College School of Art and following his father's death, Remington made his first trip to the West in the summer of 1881, traveling through Montana. The following year marked the beginning of Remington's career in illustration with a work published in the national magazine Harper's Weekly. In 1883, wanting to experience the West firsthand, the artist purchased a sheep ranch near Peabody, Kansas. This spurred a move to Kansas City in 1884 with his new wife Eva Caten. The couple returned to New York within a year due to financial troubles. Remington continued to make frequent trips to the South and Northwest, areas from which the artist drew his greatest artistic inspiration.
Remington's desire to return West and record the passing frontier was satisfied with a commission from Harper's Weekly in 1886. Within a year, Remington's illustrations of the West animated the pages of not only Harper's Weekly, but also other prestigious magazines including Outing Youth's Companion and the Century Magazine. As a star illustrator, Remington quickly gained considerable acclaim that led to future assignments with noteworthy patrons, including President Theodore Roosevelt and the influential military hero, General Nelson A. Miles.
By the 1890s Remington was one of the most popular artists in the nation. His truly authentic portrayal of Western life gained widespread praise and his work came to define the country's perception of the remote region. William Coffin, a renowned art critic at the time commented in 1892: "It is a fact that Eastern people have formed their conceptions of what the Far-Western life is like, more from what they have seen from Mr. Remington's pictures than from any other source, and if they went to the West or to Mexico they would expect to see men and places looking exactly as Mr. Remington has drawn them. Those who have been there are authority for saying they would not be disappointed." (Frederic Remington, p. 65)
The success of Remington's paintings was defined by his ability to encapsulate in a single image the essence of a story or event. In Hello, Jose!, executed circa 1897, Remington masterfully captures on canvas the events at hand -- a lone cowboy confronted by an approaching mysterious Mexican. Through his unique painting technique and masterful sense of story-telling, Remington created a vision that helped shape the popular imagination of the Old West. More importantly, Remington immortalizes in these dramatic images the passing of a way of life.