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Lot Essay
Charles Marion Russell is renowned for his dramatic portrayals of life on the great frontier of the Plains. Throughout his career, Russell documented the brief but stirring history of the cowboy and the open cattle ranch and was likewise drawn to the nobility of the Native Americans he knew. During the winter of 1888-89, Russell lived among the Blood Indians on their reservation in Alberta, Canada. This experience had a profound impact on the artist and his work. While among the Blood Indians, Russell gained a deeper understanding of the community's history and culture, a knowledge that intensified his sympathy and respect for a way of life that was quickly disappearing. The artist's deep respect for the Native Americans of the Plains found direct expression in his art throughout the rest of his career.
Beginning around 1890, Russell began to focus with great enthusiasm and reverence on the Native American subjects he encountered on the High Plains. Buffalo Hunt No. 12 is one such image that poignantly recalls the ways of life Russell would document in his art. Russell depicted life on the Plains in a variety of guises, ranging from scenes of the cowboy, whimsical narratives of life in the West, to majestic depictions of Native American groups striding on horses set against expansive landscapes. He captured the Native Americans' collective spirit of the Plains while paying tribute to a culture and lifestyle that the artist was witness to and trying to preserve.
The mid-1890s were a crucial period for Russell, both artistically and personally. In 1893 the artist committed himself to painting full-time and included works in the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Just three years later, in 1896, the same year Buffalo Hunt No. 12 was executed, Russell would marry Nancy Cooper. "She possessed both qualities and abilities that were to have a vast influence on her husband's career. One of these was a complete faith in Charlie's artistic talents; the other, a driving ambition to help him achieve success." (F.G. Renner, Charles M. Russell: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture in the Amon Carter Museum, New York, 1976, p. 16) Russell biographer, Brian Dippie, goes on to say: "Russell's interest in developing his skills as an artist were paralleled by his wife Nancy's interests in shaping and directing his career. She played a particularly active role in communicating with potential patrons. In a 1924 letter...Nancy Russell laid down the conditions under which her husband would agree to paint a piece...'He cannot draw a pretty girl or people in up-to-date clothing. But he does know and feel the romance of the West of yesterday and knows its people as well as its animals, their lives and the magic that held them here. So anything he might undertake would necessarily be from their side.'" By 1896, Russell had embarked on his full-time career devoted to a sympathetic yet honest depiction of life in the West that would gain him national fame.
"Of the recurrent themes in Russell's oeuvre, none was more thoroughly explored than the buffalo hunt. Except for a few early works in which Anglo hide hunters were portrayed in the methodical decimation of the herds, buffalo hunting for Russell was generally a grand enterprise reserved for the pre-reservation Indian. That Indian, symbolizing the Rousseauian natural man, was the single most significant symbol of the West for Russell. Such traditions as the buffalo hunt were far more profound than any of the ephemeral proficiencies of his fellow cowboys, and these traditions presented timeless and universal values that only the arts could preserve. Civilization had crushed the plains cultures. Despite the fact that the artist's vocation as a cowboy had indirectly caused the final depletion of the bison, Russell followed a self-enlightened mandate to celebrate and preserve the Indian image as noble. Just as he struggled to humanize the cowboy, he strove to idealize the Indian." (P.H. Hassrick, "Home off the Range," Charles M. Russell, New York, 1989, p. 50)
The subject of the buffalo hunt would continue to remain a focal point of Russell's interest throughout his career, beginning with an early notable work, Wild Meat for Men from 1890, and towards the end of his life the 1919 masterwork, The Buffalo Hunt No. 39 (both in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas). Buffalo Hunt No. 12, painted in 1896, is a masterful early rendering of one of the artist's favored subjects. "For the Plains Indian the buffalo hunt was the ultimate confrontation between man and beast. To Russell, the buffalo was the most important totemic animal of the plains, and he adopted the buffalo skull as his personal mark. In his paintings of the hunt, he showed the warriors chasing the huge beast with bow or rifle. The frightened prey was not without menace, and the success of the hunter, as Russell saw it, was not always assured." (J.K. Broderick, Charles M. Russell: American Artist, exhibition catalogue, St. Louis, Missouri, 1982, p. 64)
With his depiction of the buffalo hunt, Russell was expanding on both a subject and style of painting with rich artistic traditions. The hunting of buffalo was especially suited for eastern consumption and images by Russell's predecessors and contemporaries were broadly distributed. George Catlin's Catlin the Artist Shooting Buffaloes with Colt's Revolving Pistol, circa 1851, was reproduced and widely issued in print form, as were Frederic Remington's The Buffalo Hunt (1890, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming) and Albert Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo (Buffalo Hunt) (1891, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). From these other artists and from his awareness of his own role to forge a new aesthetic as an advocate for the preservation of the West, Russell was able to develop his style based in a deep artistic legacy. Carl Wimar's 1860 painting entitled Buffalo Hunt (Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, Missouri) provides a significant role model for this tradition that Russell would revolutionize. "The construction of Russell's [buffalo subjects] owes much to artistic conventions that came from a land he never saw-Germany. That frozen moment of action, that drama and portent, that final instant when destiny or life is determined, were all part of the pedagogy from that most fertile of art schools, the Düsseldorff Academy. The American teacher there, Emanuel Leutze, termed it the 'Düsseldorff tableau style,' and he converted many students to its tenets. Wimar passed these lessons on to Russell, who perfected them in his own personal way. The somber russet tonalities, the focal white horse, and the stage-like setting for the central action were all part of the debt Russell owed to Wimar and Düsseldorff." (Charles M. Russell, p. 55)
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 was presented as a gift from the Great Northern Railroad Company to Cornelius "Con" Francis Kelley in 1937. Kelley was a highly respected and influential presence in Montana as the chairman of the board of the Anaconda Copper Company. Educated with a background in law, "the articulate, perceptive and intelligent Kelley kept the Anaconda Co. alive and prosperous during the Depression and World War II. He pulled Anaconda out of huge debt after the war and, more important, he expanded the company's base so that it became one of the world's dominant mining companies." (B. Wohlberg, "The 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century," Missoulian, 1999)
The Anaconda Copper Mine was initially developed by Marcus Daly in 1883, the same year the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed through Montana. In order to reduce costs of transportation of ore from his mines in Butte to his smelter in Anaconda, Daly initiated the building of a new rail system, the Great Northern Railroad. Cornelius Kelley joined Anaconda in 1901 and quickly ascended the ranks within the company. "'It is not difficult to inventory the qualities that have animated Kelley's leadership,' wrote Isaac Marcosson in his 1957 book, Anaconda. 'It was said of Daly that he could look into the ground. Kelley has the ability to look into the future. Throughout his career he has had the vision that foresees the possibilities of tomorrow and the courage to accomplish them...He made Anaconda an industrial Gibraltar around which the business storms that dismayed others played in vain.'" (as quoted in "The 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century," Missoulian, 1999) In recognition of his service to the industry and the company's stable and significant presence in the American economy, Kelley was awarded a medal in 1929 from President Hoover.
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 has only been exhibited once and has remained in the family of Mr. Kelley since his acquiring of the work in 1937. The painting most likely hung at the family's homes both in Manhasset, New York, as well as the famed Kootenai Lodge, located approximately 15 miles outside of Bigfork, Montana. Situated on the banks of Swan Lake, the area around Kootenai Lodge had originally attracted local tribes before Western settlers began to pass through in the 1880s. Lewis Orvis Evans, a law partner of Con Kelley's at Anaconda Copper, first fished in the area in 1902 and later purchased property with Kelley in 1905. What began as a relatively humble fishing camp developed into a splendid retreat, including over 2,500 acres, numerous cabins and barns, a six-car garage, and polo grounds. Charlie Russell made a number of visits and became closely acquainted with Con Kelley. In fact, in the entrance courtyard to the main lodge there remain several drawings by Russell etched into the cement. The magnificent main lodge also attracted many other distinguished visitors including Charles Lindbergh, John D. Rockefeller, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and Will Rogers. Most significantly, Kootenai Lodge provides a focal point to the bond shared between Con Kelley and Charlie Russell and a specific context for the rich history of Buffalo Hunt No. 12.
The present painting epitomizes Russell's mission of glorifying and preserving the spirit of the West. The artist's dramatic use of composition and color further accentuates the heroic imagery of the buffalo hunt. Stages against the sweeping plains of Montana, Russell strengthens the foreground with an intense energy and movement captured in the escaping buffalo and charging horses. Russell knew from stories and documented accounts the techniques of buffalo hunting. The hunters or "buffalo horses" would cut off part of the herd and attack from two directions forcing the animals to run into each other. This strategy would minimize the danger of the riders being trampled or gored. In the present work, Russell captures the intense moment of the "buffalo horses" closing in on the herd as one of the lead animals begins to stumble, pierced by two strategically placed arrows. The sheer strength and visual power of this single moment is further intensified by the surrounding unending muted landscape comprised of the prairie frontier and distant buttes.
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 remains a visual testament to the sanctity of the Old West that had begun to disappear. During Russell's time, the nation lamented the disappearance of the Western frontier, but simultaneously believed the nation's destiny lay in the open plains. Russell, unable to change destiny, immortalized the pure Old West in sincere images such as Buffalo Hunt No. 12. It was this symbolic import of Russell's paintings that made them extremely successful during his lifetime. Today they remain as pictorial icons of a memorable time in the history of the West.
Special thank you to Mrs. Frederic G. Renner and Mr. Byron Price for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.
Beginning around 1890, Russell began to focus with great enthusiasm and reverence on the Native American subjects he encountered on the High Plains. Buffalo Hunt No. 12 is one such image that poignantly recalls the ways of life Russell would document in his art. Russell depicted life on the Plains in a variety of guises, ranging from scenes of the cowboy, whimsical narratives of life in the West, to majestic depictions of Native American groups striding on horses set against expansive landscapes. He captured the Native Americans' collective spirit of the Plains while paying tribute to a culture and lifestyle that the artist was witness to and trying to preserve.
The mid-1890s were a crucial period for Russell, both artistically and personally. In 1893 the artist committed himself to painting full-time and included works in the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Just three years later, in 1896, the same year Buffalo Hunt No. 12 was executed, Russell would marry Nancy Cooper. "She possessed both qualities and abilities that were to have a vast influence on her husband's career. One of these was a complete faith in Charlie's artistic talents; the other, a driving ambition to help him achieve success." (F.G. Renner, Charles M. Russell: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture in the Amon Carter Museum, New York, 1976, p. 16) Russell biographer, Brian Dippie, goes on to say: "Russell's interest in developing his skills as an artist were paralleled by his wife Nancy's interests in shaping and directing his career. She played a particularly active role in communicating with potential patrons. In a 1924 letter...Nancy Russell laid down the conditions under which her husband would agree to paint a piece...'He cannot draw a pretty girl or people in up-to-date clothing. But he does know and feel the romance of the West of yesterday and knows its people as well as its animals, their lives and the magic that held them here. So anything he might undertake would necessarily be from their side.'" By 1896, Russell had embarked on his full-time career devoted to a sympathetic yet honest depiction of life in the West that would gain him national fame.
"Of the recurrent themes in Russell's oeuvre, none was more thoroughly explored than the buffalo hunt. Except for a few early works in which Anglo hide hunters were portrayed in the methodical decimation of the herds, buffalo hunting for Russell was generally a grand enterprise reserved for the pre-reservation Indian. That Indian, symbolizing the Rousseauian natural man, was the single most significant symbol of the West for Russell. Such traditions as the buffalo hunt were far more profound than any of the ephemeral proficiencies of his fellow cowboys, and these traditions presented timeless and universal values that only the arts could preserve. Civilization had crushed the plains cultures. Despite the fact that the artist's vocation as a cowboy had indirectly caused the final depletion of the bison, Russell followed a self-enlightened mandate to celebrate and preserve the Indian image as noble. Just as he struggled to humanize the cowboy, he strove to idealize the Indian." (P.H. Hassrick, "Home off the Range," Charles M. Russell, New York, 1989, p. 50)
The subject of the buffalo hunt would continue to remain a focal point of Russell's interest throughout his career, beginning with an early notable work, Wild Meat for Men from 1890, and towards the end of his life the 1919 masterwork, The Buffalo Hunt No. 39 (both in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas). Buffalo Hunt No. 12, painted in 1896, is a masterful early rendering of one of the artist's favored subjects. "For the Plains Indian the buffalo hunt was the ultimate confrontation between man and beast. To Russell, the buffalo was the most important totemic animal of the plains, and he adopted the buffalo skull as his personal mark. In his paintings of the hunt, he showed the warriors chasing the huge beast with bow or rifle. The frightened prey was not without menace, and the success of the hunter, as Russell saw it, was not always assured." (J.K. Broderick, Charles M. Russell: American Artist, exhibition catalogue, St. Louis, Missouri, 1982, p. 64)
With his depiction of the buffalo hunt, Russell was expanding on both a subject and style of painting with rich artistic traditions. The hunting of buffalo was especially suited for eastern consumption and images by Russell's predecessors and contemporaries were broadly distributed. George Catlin's Catlin the Artist Shooting Buffaloes with Colt's Revolving Pistol, circa 1851, was reproduced and widely issued in print form, as were Frederic Remington's The Buffalo Hunt (1890, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming) and Albert Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo (Buffalo Hunt) (1891, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). From these other artists and from his awareness of his own role to forge a new aesthetic as an advocate for the preservation of the West, Russell was able to develop his style based in a deep artistic legacy. Carl Wimar's 1860 painting entitled Buffalo Hunt (Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, Missouri) provides a significant role model for this tradition that Russell would revolutionize. "The construction of Russell's [buffalo subjects] owes much to artistic conventions that came from a land he never saw-Germany. That frozen moment of action, that drama and portent, that final instant when destiny or life is determined, were all part of the pedagogy from that most fertile of art schools, the Düsseldorff Academy. The American teacher there, Emanuel Leutze, termed it the 'Düsseldorff tableau style,' and he converted many students to its tenets. Wimar passed these lessons on to Russell, who perfected them in his own personal way. The somber russet tonalities, the focal white horse, and the stage-like setting for the central action were all part of the debt Russell owed to Wimar and Düsseldorff." (Charles M. Russell, p. 55)
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 was presented as a gift from the Great Northern Railroad Company to Cornelius "Con" Francis Kelley in 1937. Kelley was a highly respected and influential presence in Montana as the chairman of the board of the Anaconda Copper Company. Educated with a background in law, "the articulate, perceptive and intelligent Kelley kept the Anaconda Co. alive and prosperous during the Depression and World War II. He pulled Anaconda out of huge debt after the war and, more important, he expanded the company's base so that it became one of the world's dominant mining companies." (B. Wohlberg, "The 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century," Missoulian, 1999)
The Anaconda Copper Mine was initially developed by Marcus Daly in 1883, the same year the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed through Montana. In order to reduce costs of transportation of ore from his mines in Butte to his smelter in Anaconda, Daly initiated the building of a new rail system, the Great Northern Railroad. Cornelius Kelley joined Anaconda in 1901 and quickly ascended the ranks within the company. "'It is not difficult to inventory the qualities that have animated Kelley's leadership,' wrote Isaac Marcosson in his 1957 book, Anaconda. 'It was said of Daly that he could look into the ground. Kelley has the ability to look into the future. Throughout his career he has had the vision that foresees the possibilities of tomorrow and the courage to accomplish them...He made Anaconda an industrial Gibraltar around which the business storms that dismayed others played in vain.'" (as quoted in "The 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century," Missoulian, 1999) In recognition of his service to the industry and the company's stable and significant presence in the American economy, Kelley was awarded a medal in 1929 from President Hoover.
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 has only been exhibited once and has remained in the family of Mr. Kelley since his acquiring of the work in 1937. The painting most likely hung at the family's homes both in Manhasset, New York, as well as the famed Kootenai Lodge, located approximately 15 miles outside of Bigfork, Montana. Situated on the banks of Swan Lake, the area around Kootenai Lodge had originally attracted local tribes before Western settlers began to pass through in the 1880s. Lewis Orvis Evans, a law partner of Con Kelley's at Anaconda Copper, first fished in the area in 1902 and later purchased property with Kelley in 1905. What began as a relatively humble fishing camp developed into a splendid retreat, including over 2,500 acres, numerous cabins and barns, a six-car garage, and polo grounds. Charlie Russell made a number of visits and became closely acquainted with Con Kelley. In fact, in the entrance courtyard to the main lodge there remain several drawings by Russell etched into the cement. The magnificent main lodge also attracted many other distinguished visitors including Charles Lindbergh, John D. Rockefeller, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and Will Rogers. Most significantly, Kootenai Lodge provides a focal point to the bond shared between Con Kelley and Charlie Russell and a specific context for the rich history of Buffalo Hunt No. 12.
The present painting epitomizes Russell's mission of glorifying and preserving the spirit of the West. The artist's dramatic use of composition and color further accentuates the heroic imagery of the buffalo hunt. Stages against the sweeping plains of Montana, Russell strengthens the foreground with an intense energy and movement captured in the escaping buffalo and charging horses. Russell knew from stories and documented accounts the techniques of buffalo hunting. The hunters or "buffalo horses" would cut off part of the herd and attack from two directions forcing the animals to run into each other. This strategy would minimize the danger of the riders being trampled or gored. In the present work, Russell captures the intense moment of the "buffalo horses" closing in on the herd as one of the lead animals begins to stumble, pierced by two strategically placed arrows. The sheer strength and visual power of this single moment is further intensified by the surrounding unending muted landscape comprised of the prairie frontier and distant buttes.
Buffalo Hunt No. 12 remains a visual testament to the sanctity of the Old West that had begun to disappear. During Russell's time, the nation lamented the disappearance of the Western frontier, but simultaneously believed the nation's destiny lay in the open plains. Russell, unable to change destiny, immortalized the pure Old West in sincere images such as Buffalo Hunt No. 12. It was this symbolic import of Russell's paintings that made them extremely successful during his lifetime. Today they remain as pictorial icons of a memorable time in the history of the West.
Special thank you to Mrs. Frederic G. Renner and Mr. Byron Price for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.